Keller, preaching hell to broad-minded

Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age Brimstone for the broad-minded. by Tim Keller The young man in my office was impeccably dressed and articulate. He was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries before age 30. Raised in a family with only the loosest connections to a mainline church, he had little understanding of Christianity. I was therefore gratified to learn of his intense spiritual interest, recently piqued as he attended our church. He said he was ready to embrace the gospel. But there was a final obstacle. "You've said that if we do not believe in Christ," he said, "we are lost and condemned. I'm sorry, I just cannot buy that. I work with some fine people who are Muslim, Jewish, or agnostic. I cannot believe they are going to hell just because they don't believe in Jesus. In fact, I cannot reconcile the very idea of hell with a loving God—even if he is holy too." This young man expressed what may be the main objection contemporary secular people make to the Christian message. (A close second, in my experience, is the problem of suffering and evil.) Moderns reject the idea of final judgment and hell. Thus, it's tempting to avoid such topics in our preaching. But neglecting the unpleasant doctrines of the historic faith will bring about counter-intuitive consequences. There is an ecological balance to scriptural truth that must not be disturbed. If an area is rid of its predatory or undesirable animals, the balance of that environment may be so upset that the desirable plants and animals are lost—through overbreeding with a limited food supply. The nasty predator that was eliminated actually kept in balance the number of other animals and plants necessary to that particular ecosystem. In the same way, if we play down "bad" or harsh doctrines within the historic Christian faith, we will find, to our shock, that we have gutted all our pleasant and comfortable beliefs, too. The loss of the doctrine of hell and judgment and the holiness of God does irreparable damage to our deepest comforts—our understanding of God's grace and love and of our human dignity and value to him. To preach the good news, we must preach the bad. But in this age of tolerance, how? How to preach hell to traditionalists Before preaching on the subject of hell, I must recognize that today, a congregation is made up of two groups: traditionalists and postmoderns. The two hear the message of hell completely differently. People from traditional cultures and mindsets tend to have (a) a belief in God, and (b) a strong sense of moral absolutes and the obligation to be good. These people tend to be older, from strong Catholic or religious Jewish backgrounds, from conservative evangelical/Pentecostal Protestant backgrounds, from the southern U.S., and first-generation immigrants from non-European countries. The way to show traditional persons their need for the gospel is by saying, "Your sin separates you from God! You can't be righteous enough for him." Imperfection is the duty-worshiper's horror. Traditionalists are motivated toward God by the idea of punishment in hell. They sense the seriousness of sin. But traditionalists may respond to the gospel only out of fear of hell, unless I show them Jesus experienced not only pain in general on the cross but hell in particular. This must be held up until they are attracted to Christ for the beauty of the costly love of what he did. To the traditional person, hell must be preached as the only way to know how much Christ loved you. If we play down harsh doctrines, we will gut our pleasant and comfortable beliefs too. Here is one way I have preached this: "Unless we come to grips with this terrible doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him, he was experiencing hell itself. "If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you—that hurts. If a good friend does the same—the hurt's far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you, saying, 'I never want to see you again,' that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more torturous is any separation. "But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginning-less and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God, he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. And he did it voluntarily, for us." How to preach hell to postmoderns In contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U. S., and Europeans. When preaching hell to people of this mindset, I've found I must make four arguments. 1. Sin is slavery. I do not define sin as just breaking the rules, but also as "making something besides God our ultimate value and worth." These good things, which become gods, will drive us relentlessly, enslaving us mentally and spiritually, even to hell forever if we let them. I say, "You are actually being religious, though you don't know it—you are trying to find salvation through worshiping things that end up controlling you in a destructive way." Slavery is the choice-worshiper's horror. C. S. Lewis's depictions of hell are important for postmodern people. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. There they are urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell. The descriptions Lewis makes of people in hell are so striking because we recognize the denial and self-delusion of substance addictions. When addicted to alcohol, we are miserable, but we blame others and pity ourselves; we do not take responsibility for our behavior nor see the roots of our problem. Lewis writes, "Hell … begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps even criticizing it…. You can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine." Modern people struggle with the idea of God thinking up punishments to inflict on disobedient people. When sin is seen as slavery, and hell as the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe, hell becomes much more comprehensible. Here is an example from a recent sermon of how I try to explain this: "First, sin separates us from the presence of God (Isa. 59:2), which is the source of all joy (Ps. 16:11), love, wisdom, or good thing of any sort (James 1:17)…. "Second, to understand hell we must understand sin as slavery. Romans 1:21-25 tells us that we were built to live for God supremely, but instead we live for love, work, achievement, or morality to give us meaning and worth. Thus every person, religious or not, is worshiping something—idols, pseudo-saviors—to get their worth. But these things enslave us with guilt (if we fail to attain them) or anger (if someone blocks them from us) or fear (if they are threatened) or drivenness (since we must have them). Guilt, anger, and fear are like fire that destroys us. Sin is worshiping anything but Jesus—and the wages of sin is slavery." Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that the people on Lewis's bus from hell are enslaved because they freely choose to be. They would rather have their freedom (as they define it) than salvation. Their relentless delusion is that if they glorified God, they would lose their human greatness (Gen. 3:4-5), but their choice has really ruined their human greatness. Hell is, as Lewis says, "the greatest monument to human freedom." 2. Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance. Nothing is more characteristic of the modern mindset than the statement: "I think Christ is fine, but I believe a devout Muslim or Buddhist or even a good atheist will certainly find God." A slightly different version is: "I don't think God would send a person who lives a good life to hell just for holding the wrong belief." This approach is seen as more inclusive. In preaching about hell, then, I need to counter this argument: "The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God. "You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once. "So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, 'The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.' "But what about us moral failures? We are excluded. "The gospel says, 'The people who know they aren't good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.' "Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded. "So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel's is the more inclusive exclusivity. It says joyfully, 'It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.' " 3. Christianity's view of hell is more personal than the alternative view. Fairly often, I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all." "Why?" I ask. They reply, "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin." But then a question remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?" The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary." How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." The postmodern "sensitive" approach to the subject of hell is actually quite impersonal. It says, "It doesn't matter if you believe in the person of Christ, as long as you follow his example." But to say that is to say the essence of religion is intellectual and ethical, not personal. If any good person can find God, then the essential core of religion is understanding and following the rules. When preaching about hell, I try to show how impersonal this view is: "To say that any good person can find God is to create a religion without tears, without experience, without contact. Hell is the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe. "The gospel certainly is not less than the understanding of truths and principles, but it is infinitely more. The essence of salvation is knowing a Person (John 17:3). As with knowing any person, there is repenting and weeping and rejoicing and encountering. The gospel calls us to a wildly passionate, intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ, and calls that 'the core of true salvation.' " 4. There is no love without wrath. What rankles people is the idea of judgment and the wrath of God: "I can't believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally. What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?" So in preaching about hell, we must explain that a wrathless God cannot be a loving God. Here's how I tried to do that in one sermon: "People ask, 'What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?' But any loving person is often filled with wrath. In Hope Has Its Reasons, Becky Pippert writes, 'Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it…. Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.' "Pippert then quotes E. H. Gifford, 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.' "She concludes: 'If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone's condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God's wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.' " A God like this Following a recent sermon on the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the post-service question-and-answer session was packed with more than the usual number of attenders. The questions and comments focused on the subject of eternal judgment. My heart sank when a young college student said, "I've gone to church all my life, but I don't think I can believe in a God like this." Her tone was more sad than defiant, but her willingness to stay and talk showed that her mind was open. Usually all the questions are pitched to me, and I respond as best I can. But on this occasion people began answering one another. An older businesswoman said, "Well, I'm not much of a churchgoer, and I'm in some shock now. I always disliked the very idea of hell, but I never thought about it as a measure of what God was willing to endure in order to love me." Then a mature Christian made a connection with a sermon a month ago on Jesus at Lazarus' tomb in John 11. "The text tells us that Jesus wept," he said, "yet he was also extremely angry at evil. That's helped me. He is not just an angry God or a weeping, loving God—he's both. He doesn't only judge evil, but he also takes the hell and judgment himself for us on the cross." The second woman nodded, "Yes. I always thought hell told me about how angry God was with us, but I didn't know it also told me about how much he was willing to suffer and weep for us. I never knew how much hell told me about Jesus' love. It's very moving." It is only because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamation of grace and love are so brilliant and astounding. Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

http://www.dbu.edu/jeanhumphreys/DeathDying/preachinghell.htm

"The Flesh" In the New Testament, however, are many places where the term "the flesh" has a darker coloring. Here it refers primarily to the whole human personality -‑ body, soul, mind and emotions as they function apart from the presence and control of the Holy Spirit. It can refer either to non‑Christians or to residual sin in believers. --Richard Lovelace

“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But out merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner-no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him is also Christ vere latitat- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.” --CS Lewis in The Weight of Glory

Scripture Reading: Matthew 1:18-25

Many of us have read the angel’s announcement to Joseph in Matthew 1 so many times that we have lost our sense of wonder at the angel’s message. The angel quotes the prophet Isaiah and says, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel’ - which, means, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). In announcing the coming of Immanuel, God with us, the angel is proclaiming that after years of separation from the Father, we finally, once again, have a home. Remember Adam and Eve? Remember the Garden from Genesis 3? We were created for intimacy with God. But we gave that up when we chose sin and a heart that was separated from Him. We chose an orphan existence and mentality over an existence protected and cared for by the Father.

But, despite the wickedness of the world and the disobedience of His people, the Father’s heart for intimacy and fellowship with His people didn’t change. So He provided a way for fellowship to be restored; He sent Immanuel in the womb of a woman. When we read the angel’s message carefully, we are able to hear the heartbeat of the Father as never before.

As a child, did you ever sit in a parent’s lap and actually hear his or her heartbeat? This is the invitation the angel gives to Joseph. “Joseph, the Father invites you to lean close, to become still, and to hear His heart. For a Son is to be born who will ‘save his people from their sins.’ The barrier that separates God from man is getting ready to be rent in two after centuries of waiting. Immanuel
is coming.”

Many of us never heard a parent say, “Child, I want to spend time with you. I want to be with you. I don’t want anything to separate you from me.” But the good news is that, in the coming of Immanuel, we have the deepest, most passionate display of affection from a Father to His children. This love of the Father is the essence of Advent, for Advent is about pulling up a chair and becoming quiet and still enough to personally hear the message of the Father’s heart. Through the ages, His heart is to be our God, to walk with us, to talk with us, to live inside of us, and for us to be His people. It is to change our orphan hearts into hearts that have a home with the Father.

So the invitation the Angel extended to Joseph is the same invitation the Lord gives to us today. “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid of the child within Mary. He is Jesus. His name is Immanuel, and He has come that the Lord might be your Father and that you might be, in garden-like intimacy, His child. This week, marvel at the message of the angel...and take time to hear the heartbeat of your Heavenly Father.

Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for sending Jesus, Your son, whose name is Immanuel, God with us. We long for the day when we will see You face to face. Give us courage to wait for that day, and help us to walk in the Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love that is ours as Your sons and daughters. We rejoice in Your birth, and we eagerly await Your Second Coming. May You find us faithful on the day that You return to take us home. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.

“The kingdom of God is the new and final age that began with the coming of Jesus. His kingdom is not part of the present age — an age where the flesh reigns; where people are divided, relationships are broken, and suspicion and competition dominate; where money, sex, and power are abused; where leaders are first and servants last; where behavior is controlled by laws, and identity is defined by race, gender, or social standing; and where gifts and resources are used for the advancement of oneself.

Rather, the kingdom of God is the new age. It is the age of the Spirit (Matt 12:28). It is the age of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). The Kingdom of God is about the renewal, restoration, and reconciliation of all things, and God has made us a part of this great story of salvation.

This kingdom is about the restoration of relationships, justice, and equality; about freedom from every lord except Jesus; about reconciliation, forgiveness, and the defeat of Satan. It is about compassion for the poor and powerless, about helping those who are marginalized and rejected by society, and about our gifts and resources for the advancement of others. It is about new communities and the transformation of society and culture, so that race, gender, and social class no longer define identity, nor are they used to control and divide. For Paul, to preach the gospel is to preach the kingdom, is to preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:24-27).

The gospel sums up the whole message of good news that he brought to the nations — particularly to the downtrodden and powerless. And since it is good news, our response to the message of the kingdom is to be one of repentant faith (Mark 1:15).”

- Neil H. Williams, Gospel Transformation, 2nd Ed. (Jenkintown, Pa.: World Harvest Mission, 2006), iii.

Moral balance

The second area of biblical tension is the moral sphere, or the question of holiness. Already God has put His Holy Spirit within us, and already the in-dwelling Spirit has begun to subdue our passions and to produce in our character and conduct His beautiful fruit of love, joy, peace, and the rest. Already, as the Holy Spirit fills us, He begins to turn us inside out and to make us more like Christ.

Not yet, however, has our twisted, distorted, fallen, self-centered nature been eradicated. Not yet do we love God with all our being or love our neighbor as ourselves. We are caught in this painful dialectic between assurance of victory and dismay over our continuing sinfulness; between the cry of triumph, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ," and the cry of longing, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

On the one hand, we have to take seriously God's command, "Be holy because I am holy," and the command of Jesus, "Go and sin no more," and the statement of John, "These things I have written to you so that you may not sin." But on the other hand, we have to face the reality of our continuing sinfulness, lest we become proud or dishonest. Let me give you a couple of quotations.

In his own understanding of sanctification, Augustine said in one of his sermons: "thither we make our way, still as pilgrims, not yet at rest; still on the road, not yet at home; still aiming at it, not yet attaining it." And John Newton, the converted slave trader, put it beautifully: "I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world, but thank God I am not what I once used to be and by the grace of God, I am what I am."

Physical balance

That brings me to my third area, which is the physical sphere or the question of health. Already the Kingdom of God has erupted into human history in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He walked on water, He turned water into wine, He stilled the storm, He multiplied the loaves and fishes, He healed the sick, He raised the dead. In other words, He gave plenty of evidence of His own lordship over nature. The Kingdom had come in that respect.

Not yet, however, has God's Kingdom come in its fullness. Our bodies have not yet been redeemed and it is only when the body is redeemed at the resurrection that we shall be finally delivered from disease, pain, and death. Not yet have these things been destroyed. Not yet has nature become fully subservient to the rule of God.

On the one hand the Kingdom of God is at work in the world, but on the other, as we read in Romans 8, the whole creation is groaning in the pains of childbirth, and we ourselves are groaning, waiting for the new order to be born. I believe there are too many grinning Christians and not enough groaning Christians. There is an authentic groaning of the redeemed who are longing for the fullness of salvation, which will be ours one day.

So here is another tension. We have tasted the powers of the age to come, because the age to come has come, but so far it is only a taste. We experience the risen life of Jesus in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4) but to proclaim perfect health for everybody now is to anticipate the resurrection of the body.

Those who are dismissive of the very possibility of the healing miracles have forgotten the already of the Kingdom, while those who describe these miracles as "the normal Christian life" have not come to terms with the not yet.

Social balance

My fifth and last example is the social sphere, or the question of social progress. Already the Kingdom of God is at work in human society like yeast in dough. Jesus appointed His people to be the salt and the light of the world. Salt and light affect, even change, the environment in which they are placed. When you rub salt into meat or fish, bacterial decay is, if not arrested, at least hindered. And if you switch on the light something happens: the darkness is dispelled.

The Church has had an enormous influence all down the ages. Think of the rising standards of health and hygiene; the greater availability of literacy and education pioneered by Christian people; the greater concern for the sick and the elderly, that they may be allowed to live and die in dignity; the equal respect for and rights of all men, women, and children; improved conditions in mine, factory, and prison; concern for the environment; the abolition of slavery and the slave trade; and we could easily go on.

We can't claim that all those things are due entirely to Christian influence, but they are very largely so. Through His followers Jesus Christ has had an enormous influence upon society throughout the world.

Not yet, however, have nations beaten their swords into plowshares, or their spears into pruning hooks. Not yet has God created the new heaven and the new earth which will be the home of righteousness and peace. So it is right to expect further progress, as Christians become increasingly the salt and the light of the world.

But Christians are not utopians. We cannot perfect society, but that does not mean that we cannot improve it. We should seek to improve it and to make it more pleasing to God.

Three types of Christians

Let me recapitulate. In five spheres —— intellectual, moral, physical, ecclesiastical, and social —— we need to preserve the tension and balance between the already and the not yet.

I want to conclude by suggesting that there are three types of Christians today according to the degree to which they maintain this Biblical balance.

First, there are the "already Christians." They are the sunny optimists. They concentrate on what God has already said, done, and given through Jesus Christ. So whether the sphere is knowledge or holiness or health or the Church or the world, they give the impression that there are really no mysteries left that we cannot solve, no sins that cannot be conquered, no diseases that cannot be healed.

Their motive is marvelous. They want to glorify Christ. And because they want to glorify Him, they don't want to admit that there is anything that He cannot do today. The danger with them is that their optimism can easily degenerate into presumption and their presumption into disillusion. These "already" Christians forget the not yet, that perfection awaits the Parousia.

Pessimists and realists

Second, there are the "not yet Christians." They are the gloomy pessimists. They concentrate on the incompleteness of the work of Christ and on human depravity. They see evil ingrained in human nature and in human society and they see little possibility of improvement. They give the impression of being exceedingly negative in all their attitudes. They are wet blankets.

Actually their motive is fine too. They want to humble sinners. But the danger of the "not yet" Christians is that their pessimism can easily degenerate into complacency and their complacency into apathy. They forget the already of what God has said, done, and given in Jesus Christ, which we need to exploit to the full.

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Third, there are the "already, not yet Christians." They are the Biblical realists. They focus equally on the two comings of Christ, on what He has done and what He is going to do, living in the tension between Kingdom come and Kingdom coming.

They want equally to glorify Christ and to humble sinners at the same time. On the one hand they are determined to explore and experience to the fullest possible extent everything that God has said, done, and given in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, they keep their feet on the ground. They acknowledge the continuing folly and weakness and sinfulness of Christian people until the second coming.

More confidence and more humility

My desire is for more Christian confidence in the already, a determination to enter fully into everything that is possible for us today, and more humility before the not yet, acknowledging that much ignorance, much sinfulness, much physical frailty, much ecclesiastical unfaithfulness, and much social decay will continue as symptoms of a fallen world until Christ comes again.

And it is this combination of the already and the not yet, of Kingdom come and Kingdom coming, of the look back to the past and the look on to the future, of Christian confidence and Christian humility that characterizes authentic BBC. (More detailed & "better" version in the book Contemporary CHristian)

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"Balanced, Biblical Christianity" is taken from the "Social Witness and Action" (Spring 1995) issue of Mission & Ministry, the quarterly magazine of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. Subscriptions may be ordered for $16.00 a year (four issues) from: Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, 311 Eleventh Street, Ambridge, PA 15003. Inquiries may be made to the editor, David Mills, at DavidMills@tesm.edu.

In his response to John's disciples, Jesus was claiming that the fulfillment of the OT hope with its attendant blessings was in fact present in his person and ministry. The fulfillment, however, was not taking place along expected lines, hence John’s perplexity. The unexpected element was that fulfillment was taking place in Jesus, but without the eschatological consummation. The OT prophetic hope of the coming Messianic kingdom of God as promised to Israel is being fulfilled in the person and ministry of Jesus, but not consummated. The Jews of our Lord’s day, in keeping with what they saw in the OT, expected the consummation of the kingdom, the complete and final overthrow of Israel’s political enemies and the ushering in of the age of blessed peace and prosperity in the land. Our Lord, however, came with the message that before the kingdom would come in its eschatological consummation it has come in his own person and work in spirit and power. The kingdom, therefore, is both the present spiritual reign of God and the future realm over which He will rule in power and glory. (Taken from Sam Storms 2 part articles on the not yet & already of the kingdom... they look to be very good)

Peace On Earth... by U2

i am increasingly amazed at the depth of theological insight that comes from U2... while preparing to preach on Christ our King during advent I've been thinking alot about the sad reality of the "Not Yet" part of Christ's Kingdom... songs like "Do they know it's Christmas-time at all?" and others get at the unfinished business of bringing peace on earth. So does this one from the ALL YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND album. I've added it to my "Christmas" playlist on the ipod to remind me of the "not yet-ness"

Peace On Earth

Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth

Where I grew up
There weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

It's already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt

Jesus could you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No-one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the colour in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth

They're reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won't get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
Their lives are bigger, than any big idea

Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth

Jesus this song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth?
This peace on Earth

Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth taken from U2.com

John Newton's hymn "A Sick Soul"

John Newton's hymn "A Sick Soul" is fitting as my prayer of response:

Physician of my sin–sick soul,
To thee I bring my case;
My raging malady control,
And heal me by thy grace.

Pity the anguish I endure,
See how I mourn and pine;
For never can I hope a cure
From any hand but thine.

I would disclose my whole complaint,
But where shall I begin?
No words of mine can fully paint
That worst distemper, sin.

It lies not in a single part,
But through my frame is spread;
A burning fever in my heart,
A palsy in my head.

It makes me deaf, and dumb, and blind,
And impotent and lame;
And overclouds, and fills my mind,
With folly, fear, and shame.

A thousand evil thoughts intrude
Tumultuous in my breast;
Which indispose me for my food,
And rob me of my rest.

Lord I am sick, regard my cry,
And set my spirit free;
Say, canst thou let a sinner die,
Who longs to live to thee?

Mark Noll: Praise the Lord... how music divides & unites

An old German proverb runs: "Wer spricht mit mir ist mein Mitmensch; wer singt mit mir ist mein Bruder" (the one who speaks with me is my fellow human; the one who sings with me is my brother). In the world Christian community today, nothing defines "brotherhood" more obviously than singing. As it was in the beginning of the limited Christian pluralism in 16th-century Europe, so it remains in the nearly unbounded Christian pluralism of the 21st century. As soon as there were Protestants to be differentiated from Catholics, Calvinists from Lutherans, Anabaptists from Lutherans and Calvinists, Anglicans from Roman Catholics and other Protestants—so soon did singing become the powerful two-sided reality that it continues to be.

One reality was that believers who together sang the same hymns in the same way came to experience very strong ties with each other and even stronger rooting in Christianity. Psalm singing nerved Huguenots to face death and devastation during France's violent religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. Palestrina gave an incalculable boost to the Counter-Reformation when he provided masses, hymns, litanies, and magnificats that for many Roman Catholics became as expressive of their faith as the congregational singing of Protestants was of theirs. In his fine book Singing the Gospel, Christopher Boyd Brown has shown that Bohemian Lutherans survived several generations of imperial Catholic pressure because families and lay groups were so much strengthened by the hymnody of Luther and his tradition.¹ Anabaptism was a movement of song—non-instrumental, non-clerical, non-élitist—as well as movement of belief; when Brethren or Mennonites sang, unaccompanied and in free form, the hymns of Michael Sattler, who was martyred in 1527 for his Anabaptist beliefs, they were affirming who they were as Christian believers and who they were not.

Which brings us to the second reality. As much as hymn singing has always been one of the most effective builders of Christian community, it has also always been one of the strongest dividers of Christian communities. In the early decades of the Reformation, Calvinists broke with Lutherans over several important matters, but one was existentially apparent at every gathering for worship: the singing. Lutherans sang hymns that with considerable freedom expressed their understanding of the gospel (like Luther's "A Mighty Fortress" or "From Heaven High I Come to You"), and they often sang them with choirs, organs, and full instrumentation. Calvinists, by contrast, sang the psalms paraphrased and with minimal or no instrumental accompaniment (like the 100th Psalm, "All people that on earth do dwell," which was prepared by William Kethe for English and Scottish exiles who had taken refuge in Calvin's Geneva during the persecutions of England's Catholic Mary Tudor). However natural it may now seem for Protestant hymnals to contain both Luther's "A Mighty Fortress" and Kethe's "Old One Hundredth," in fact it took more than two centuries of contentious Protestant history to overcome the visceral antagonism to "non-scriptural" hymns that prevailed widely in the English-speaking world. It was even longer before organs, choirs, and instrumental accompaniment were accepted.

In other words, long before the contemporary "worship wars" that have become such a central feature of both church formation and church division in North America, battles over song littered the historical landscape—from full-scale encounters in the Reformation era to major skirmishes in the early 18th century over introducing the hymns of Isaac Watts (who offered loose paraphrases of Scripture), then a bit later over the hymns of Charles Wesley and other notables of the evangelical awakenings (who mostly gave up paraphrasing in favor of biblically normed accounts of Christian experience), over the use of organs and choirs (much debated throughout the 19th century), over whether and where to sing the gospel songs of Fanny Crosby and Ira B. Sankey (much derided as dangerously sentimental), over how to regard the burst of hymn-writing attending the rise of Pentecostalism (ditto), and, most recently, over what to make of the Jesus People bringing rock-n-roll into the church (the Jesus People and their heirs have triumphed, though many true lovers of rock regard the outcome as a Pyrrhic victory).

This long history of both solidification and division raises an important question: What explains the power of song so powerfully to shape, anchor, encourage, disturb, unite, divide, and distract Christian communities?

It is a much better question than can be answered in a brief essay on what the churches must learn and unlearn in order to be agents of God in the world. Yet at least part of the answer is that singing is a deeply rooted expression of culture. Becoming self-conscious about culture and why, as illustrated by Christian experience of song, reactions to cultural expressions are so powerful has become imperative. With people, goods, and communications both electronic and print now flying around the globe at unprecedented speeds, and—more important—with almost all Christian communities daily confronting ever-expanding instances of cross-cultural commingling, the church's effectiveness as the herald of salvation and the hands of Christ for service in the world depends, now more than ever, on self-conscious attention to cultural differences.

Culture is defined in various ways, but I am using it to mean the frameworks of understanding, in the broadest sense, under which people carry out their lives. One classic definition came from the recently deceased anthropologist Clifford Geertz: culture, in his depiction, is "an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, and systems of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which [people] communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." Thus, song as a cultural expression is made up of verbal and aural symbols that express, or heighten, meaning because of how people have experienced music throughout the life course.

In these terms, culture is substantially assumed, given, unquestioned, and instinctive—though it can also become self-conscious over the passage of years or when alternative expressions intrude into daily life. For example, you can become aware that your instinctive emotional reaction to an old hymn, a school fight song, or a snatch of elevator muzak is not a universal human reaction but something resulting from your own singular biography and the associations you have experienced in connection with those particular songs.

Likewise, culture exerts a very strong pre-cognitive hold over how people experience the world, but it is also possible for cultural attitudes and reactions to change over time, and for people to learn and unlearn what strikes them instinctively as right. For example, even late in life you can self-consciously learn to appreciate, and even be moved by, Dave Brubeck, J. S. Bach, and probably Twila Paris.

Moviegoers who are conscious of connections between the scores they hear and what they are watching on the screen know that Martin Luther once caught it exactly: "For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate or to appease those full of hate … , what more effective means than music could you find?" We are what we sing, the music we listen to regularly, the music we instinctively like, the music that brings tears to our eyes or a charge of energy to our spirits, the music that expresses our deepest longings and strongest loyalties.

Scripture recognizes the cultural depth of music by simply accepting and recording its fundamental importance—from Genesis 4:21 (with the throwaway reference to Jubal, "the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe") to Revelation, where the living creatures surround the throne of God and sing "day and night without ceasing … 'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come'" (4:8) while every creature, "myriads of myriads and thousands and thousands" sing "with full voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!'" (5:11-12). Yet in the book of Revelation it is noteworthy that when the great gathering of the redeemed is described—"from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages"—this gathering is said to "cry out" its praise ("Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" [7:9-10]), while in the same scene the angels around the throne are said to "sing" ("Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen" [7:11-12]).

Too much should not be made of the difference between "crying out" praise and "singing" praise. But it does point to the fact that singing is a special challenge when Christian believers gather from every land and tongue or, we might say, from every culture or even subculture. The new Christian music of Andean, Thai, Tanzanian, or Mongolian congregations can be jarring to most believers from the West, even as Western hymnody can be as alien to those congregations as Western individualism, Western economics, or Western clothing (culture vs. culture). Likewise the contemporary praise of Hillsong can sound like an unintelligible musical tongue to believers whose roots are deep in Charles Wesley or John Newton, and vice versa (subculture vs. subculture). In these and many other occasions of musical disharmony, we see again the countervailing realities that have long marked Christian song: music is an exceedingly powerful medium for securing Christianity in a community; different forms of music are one of the most obvious manifestations keeping worshiping communities apart. Explaining why both realities exist requires attention to several theological truths.

Classical theology, as augmented by the rich insights of contemporary missiologists, is clear about a great deal that goes into a Christian understanding of culture. First, God is the originator of everything that constitutes culture. The accounts of early Genesis are peppered with culture-making creations, including the naming capacity of language (2:19), the internalization of standards defining right and wrong (2:16-17, 3:1-14), the use of tools for human purposes (4:22), and, again, the capacity for music (4:21).

Second, without denying that humans abuse the creation for sinful purposes, Scripture is also clear that, because all humans are redeemable, so also can the structures of all cultures be used to honor God. Thus, at Pentecost many languages conveyed the gospel message (Acts 2:4-11), even though at least some speakers of the various languages must have held others in contempt as deficient, barbaric, or uncivilized. The Apostle Paul, when addressing the Athenians (Acts 17:26-28), recognized the worth of innate religious longings and also of artistic works arising from cultures that had not yet received the gospel. And in Revelation we read that into the City of the Lamb at the end of time will come "the kings of the earth" with "their glory," as well as the people who "bring into it the glory and honor of the nations" (21:24-26). This text is plausibly referring to the ornaments of civilization disbursed throughout the world's various cultures. The pointers toward a potentially positive evaluation of culture, wherever it is found, have been spelled out by the missiologist Andrew Walls: "Christ took flesh and was made man in a particular time and place, family, nationality, tradition and customs and sanctified them, while still being for all men in every time and place. Wherever he is taken by the people of any day, time and place, he sanctifies that culture—he is living in it."

In such a Christian view, cultural diversity is a good thing because it manifests the bountiful fullness of God's creating and redeeming work. Drum sets and pipe organs and the kora (a 21-string harp used by the Mande in Senegal) may all, therefore, be employed with great effect to praise God as the author of salvation—at least for those to whom drum sets or pipe organs or the kora are culturally appropriate. To make this affirmation would seem only to flesh out the joyful proclamation of 1 Timothy 4:4, "Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God's word and by prayer."

But what then of Christian life together? If you are a believer who worries about throwing up when you find yourself too close to the drummers during an extended praise set—or a believer who falls asleep before a Bach prelude gets to the fugue—or a believer who doesn't really feel the gospel until it is accompanied on the kora—then the divine sanctification of cultural diversity would seem to cancel out the divine mandate for Christian unity.

The solution may lie in a third theological affirmation—that we are living in "the time between the times," the "already but not yet," where the gospel is really and truly active in the world but not yet manifest in its completeness. In this suspended age, signs of the fully realized Kingdom do abound. It is said that William Wadé Harris, who early in the 20th century was so important for indigenizing Christianity in several West African locales, loved to sing "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending," a great, but also complex, Wesleyan hymn from the 18th-century evangelical revivals. Later in the 20th century, a North American, Robert Savage, who worked at radio station HCJB in Quito, published popular gospel songs for Latin America's nascent Protestant churches that skillfully used local instrumentation and tempos.

The increasing number of such examples makes it possible to imagine a fully harmonious and spiritually edifying service of Christian worship where new Christian believers played Palestrina on the indigenous musical instruments of Burkina Faso, where an African American gospel choir led in a chorale of Heinrich Schütz, where white middle-class Presbyterians surged with Christian ecstasy to the beat of a drum, where teenaged believers filled up their iPods with the Robert Shaw Chorale, and where learned Western theologians delighted in a nearly infinite repetition of "God is so good, he's so good to me."

That it is possible in these last days—in days of increased cultural self-awareness, cross-cultural contact, intra-cultural antagonism and appreciation—to imagine (if not yet to realize) such a vision means that the miraculous day draws nearer as described by the psalmist millennia ago:

Praise the Lord! … Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Or, we might say today, "Praise him with syncopation and on the beat. Praise him with 5-tones (the Thai xylophone), 12-tones (most Western music), 24-tones (Arab music), and all scales in between. Praise him a cappella, with orchestra, and with drum set. Praise him with works of supernal intelligence and greatest simplification. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Together."

Mark Noll is Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.

1. Christopher Boyd Brown, Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005). A review is forthcoming in Books & Culture.

| Posted on December 5, 2007 | TrackBack

80% capacity rule

==by David Zimmerman-- I don’t know if it’s because we are afraid of the pastor picking us out or scared that people will be talking about us behind our back but no one likes to sit up front. You can take one of the seats in back as long as you’ve shown up on time--otherwise everyone else might have taken the prime seats in the back, leaving only the front row open.

The 80% rule states that when a building has reached 80% of capacity it is full. This is because we all have a sense of personal space. Do an experiment: the next time you find yourself in a conversation, note how far away from the other person you are standing and then take a step toward them. When I once did this to a friend he started to stutter and turn red. In the post-experiment debriefing I found out that his first thought was to punch me. I am not suggesting that your visitors will become violent when your facilities are too full, but we all need a certain amount of space to make us feel comfortable. This is the phenomenon that dictates the 80% rule. The compliment of this rule is that the remaining 20% of seats will be in undesirable locations--such as the front row.

One way to overcome this problem is to constantly monitor your church attendance. When you realize you are averaging about 80% capacity, know that you’ve overgrown your current location. In fact I’ve heard some people aim for 75% capacity to give them enough time to plan options for accommodating more people. Solutions to this problem depend on the nature of your facility. If you own your own building, it’s time to start a new service. If you are renting, you need to find a larger location (or you could start another service as well).
---you can read the entire post here

Vows for Ordination of a Minister (aka Teaching Elder)

Questions for Ordination1

Then, addressing himself to the candidate, he shall propose to him

the following questions:

1. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as originally given, to be the inerrant Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice?

2. Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and
the Catechisms of this Church, as containing the system of
doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and do you further
promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with
any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, you
will on your own initiative, make known to your Presbytery
the change which has taken place in your views since the
assumption of this ordination vow?

3. Do you approve of the form of government and discipline of
the Presbyterian Church in America, in conformity with the
general principles of Biblical polity?

4. Do you promise subjection to your brethren in the Lord?

5. Have you been induced, as far as you know your own heart,
to seek the office of the holy ministry from love to God and a
sincere desire to promote His glory in the Gospel of His Son?

6. Do you promise to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the
truths of the Gospel and the purity and peace and unity of
the Church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise
unto you on that account?

7. Do you engage to be faithful and diligent in the exercise of all

your duties as a Christian and a minister of the Gospel, whether

personal or relational, private or public; and to endeavor by the

grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in your

manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the

flock of which God shall make you overseer?

8. Are you now willing to take the charge of this church,

agreeable to your declaration when accepting their call?

And do you, relying upon God for strength, promise to

discharge to it the duties of a pastor?

Sin & Forgiveness

Because we are not intimately familiar with the Old Testament and don’t immediately make the
connection that Jews steeped in the Torah and the prophets would have made, we might miss something very important about our Lord words and actions. Throughout the Old Testament, sin and sickness are frequently connected, as is forgiveness and healing. The same linkage between healing and forgiveness can be found in Psalm 103:3 where the psalmist praises God, “who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.” Likewise in Psalm 147:3 we read
that God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” The same kind of language is found
throughout the prophecy of Isaiah. In Isaiah 19:22 we read, “The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague;
he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and
heal them.” Similarly in Isaiah 58:16-19, we find these words, “I will not accuse forever, nor will I
always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me—the breath of man that I have
created. I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in
his willful ways. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him,
creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near," says the
LORD. `And I will heal them.’” Then, there are a number of passages in which healing and forgiveness
are virtually interchangeable terms.4 This can be seen in a text such as Psalm 41:4–“I said, `O LORD,
have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.’”
Therefore, when Jesus tells this poor paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven he is getting to the root
cause of this man’s problem. Paralysis (for whatever reason) is an outward sign that our race is fallen.
The overturning of the curse–brought upon us all because of Adam’s act of rebellion in Eden–is the
mission that Jesus came to perform. By forgiving the man’s sin, Jesus is making the direct connection
between sin and sickness as cause and effect. Although as soon as we utter these words we also must
point out that the Bible never says that we suffer in relation to how many sins we have committed. We
need to be clear about this. Many times God calls the righteous to suffer and allows the wicked to
prosper. This is part of his purpose and remains a mystery to us, other than to say that God alone has the
power and purpose to turn everything to our good, even our sickness and suffering.
In fact, Jesus makes this exact point in Luke 13:1-4, “Now there were some present at that time who told
Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, `Do you
think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this
way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the
tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?
I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’” The point is that we do not necessarily
suffer or get sick in direct proportion to our sins.5 We do live in a fallen world. We are all born guilty
for Adam’s sin. We all inherit a corrupt and sinful nature. And then we all commit acts of sin, which
may, or may not, bring down God’s punishment upon us. Therefore, our sin in Adam lies at the root of
all our suffering. This is Jesus’ point. Our restoration begins with forgiveness. --Kim Riddlebarger...
It seems like i remember similar themes and good stuff from Stott when i preached Acts 4-- yep here it is

2 brief bible studies by Packer on Demons & Satan

DEMONS:GOD HAS SUPERNATURAL OPPONENTS

They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. DEUTERONOMY 32:17

“Demon,” or “devil” as earlier translations rendered the words, is the Greek daimon and daimonion, the regular terms in the Gospels for the spiritual beings, corrupt and hostile to both God and man, whom Jesus exorcised from their victims in large numbers during his earthly ministry. The demons were fallen angels, deathless creatures serving Satan (Jesus equated Beelzebub, their reputed prince, with Satan: Matt. 12:24-29). Having joined Satan’s rebellion, they were cast out of heaven to await final judgment (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). Their minds are permanently set to oppose God, goodness, truth, the kingdom of Christ, and the welfare of human beings, and they have real if limited power and freedom of movement, though in Calvin’s picturesque phrase they drag their chains wherever they go and can never hope to overcome God.

The level and intensity of demonic manifestations in people during Christ’s ministry was unique, having no parallel in Old Testament times or since; it was doubtless part of Satan’s desperate battle for his kingdom against Christ’s attack on it (Matt. 12:29). Demons were revealed as having knowledge and strength (Mark 1:24; 9:17-27). They inflicted, or at least exploited, physical and mental maladies (Mark 5:1-15; 9:17-18; Luke 11:14). They recognized and feared Christ, to whose authority they were subject (Mark 1:25; 3:11-12; 9:25), though by his own confession it was only through effort in prayer that he was able to expel them (Mark 9:29).

Christ authorized and equipped the Twelve and the seventy to exorcise in his name (i.e., by his power—Luke 9:1; 10:17), and the ministry of exorcism continues still as an occasional pastoral necessity. The sixteenth-century Lutheran church abolished exorcism, believing that Christ’s victory over Satan had suppressed demonic invasion forever, but this was premature.

Satan’s army of demons uses subtler strategies also, namely, deception and discouragement in many forms. Opposing these is the essence of spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10-18). Though demons can give trouble of many kinds to regenerate persons in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, they cannot finally thwart God’s purpose of saving his elect any more than they can finally avoid their own eternal torment. As the devil is God’s devil (that is Luther’s phrase), so the demons are God’s demons, defeated enemies (Col. 2:15) whose limited power is prolonged only for the advancement of God’s glory as his people contend with them.

SATAN: FALLEN ANGELS HAVE A LEADER

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.

JOB 1:6

Satan, leader of the fallen angels, comes like them into full view only in the New Testament. His name means “adversary” (opponent of God and his people), and the Old Testament introduces him as such (1 Chron. 21:1; Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1-2). The New Testament gives him revealing titles: “devil” (diabolos) means accuser (i.e., of God’s people: Rev. 12:9-10); “Apollyon” (Rev. 9:11) means destroyer; “the tempter” (Matt. 4:3; 1 Thess. 3:5) and “the evil one” (1 John 5:18-19) mean what they say; “prince” and “god of this world” point to Satan as presiding over mankind’s anti-God life-styles (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; cf. Eph. 2:2; 1 John 5:19; Rev. 12:9). Jesus said that Satan was always a murderer and is the father of lies—that is, he is both the original liar and the sponsor of all subsequent falsehood and deceits (John 8:44). Finally, he is identified as the serpent who fooled Eve in Eden (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). The picture is one of unimaginable meanness, malice, fury, and cruelty directed against God, against God’s truth, and against those to whom God has extended his saving love.

Satan’s deceptive cunning is highlighted by Paul’s statement that he becomes an angel of light, disguising evil as good (2 Cor. 11:14). His destructive ferocity comes out in the description of him as a roaring, devouring lion (1 Pet. 5:8) and as a dragon (Rev. 12:9). As he was Christ’s sworn foe (Matt. 4:1-11; 16:23; Luke 4:13; John 14:30; cf. Luke 22:3, 53), so now he is the Christian’s, always probing for weaknesses, misdirecting strengths, and undermining faith, hope, and character (Luke 22:32; 2 Cor. 2:11; 11:3-15; Eph. 6:16). He should be taken seriously, for malice and cunning make him fearsome; yet not so seriously as to provoke abject terror of him, for he is a beaten enemy. Satan is stronger than we are, but Christ has triumphed over Satan (Matt. 12:29), and Christians will triumph over him too if they resist him with the resources that Christ supplies (Eph. 6:10-13; James 4:7; 1 Pet. 5:9-10). “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

• Acknowledging Satan’s reality,
• taking his opposition seriously,
• noting his strategy (anything, provided it be not biblical Christianity),
• and reckoning on always being at war with him—

this is not a lapse into a dualistic concept of two gods, one good, one evil, fighting it out.

Satan is a creature, superhuman but not divine;

• he has much knowledge and power, but he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent;
• he can move around in ways that humans cannot, but he is not omnipresent;
• and he is an already defeated rebel, having no more power than God allows him and being destined for the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).

Newton on Temptation & evil thoughts

Were I to define a Christian, or rather to describe him at large, I know no text I would choose sooner as a ground for the subject than Gal. v. 17. A Christian has noble aims, which distinguish him from the bulk of mankind. His leading principles, motives, and desires, are all supernatural and divine. Could he do as he would, there is not a spirit before the throne should excel him in holiness, love, and obedience. He would tread in the very footsteps of his Saviour, fill up every moment in His service, and employ every breath in His praise. This he would do, but alas! he cannot. Against this desire of the spirit, there is a contrary desire and working of a corrupt nature, which meets him at every turn. He has a beautiful copy set before him: he is enamoured with it, and though he does not expect to equal it, he writes carefully after it, and longs to attain to the nearest possible imitation. But indwelling sin and Satan continually jog his hand and spoil his strokes. You cannot, Madam, form a right judgment of yourself, except you make due allowance for those things which are not peculiar to yourself, but common to all who have spiritual perception and are indeed the inseparable appendages of this mortal state. If it were not so, why should the most spiritual and gracious people be so ready to confess themselves vile and worthless? One eminent branch of our holiness is a sense of shame and humiliation for those evils which are only known to ourselves, and to Him who searches our hearts, joined with an acquiescence in Jesus who is appointed of God-wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. I will venture to assure you, that though you will possess a more stable peace, in proportion as the Lord enables you to live more simply upon the blood, righteousness, and grace of the Mediator, you will never grow into a better opinion of yourself than you have at present. The nearer you are brought to Him, the quicker sense you will have of your continual need of Him, and thereby your admiration of His power, love, and compassion will increase likewise from year to year. the entire letter....Temptations-Evil Thoughts

God loves you AS YOU SIN

God’s love is like Himself- it is equal and constant. And even the things which appear to show that God has changed His mind about us proceed from His love for us. We are so different- our love changes, yet God’s love is always the same.

“Objection. But you will say, ‘This comes nigh to that blasphemy, that God loves his people in their sinning as will as in their strictest obedience; and, if so, who will care to serve Him more, or to walk with Him unto well-pleasing?’

Answer. There are few truths of Christ, which, from some or other, have not received like entertainment with this. Terms and appellations are at the will of every imposer; things are not at all varied by them. The love of God in itself is the eternal purpose and act of His will. This is no more changeable than God Himself: if it were, no flesh could be saved; but it changeth not, and we are not consumed. What then? Loves He His people in their sinning? Yes; His people-not their sinning. Alters He not His love towards them? Not the purpose of His will, but the dispensations of His grace. He rebukes them, He chastens them, He hides His face from them, He smites them, He fills them with a sense of His indignation; but woe, woe would it be to us, should He change in His love, or take away His kindness from us! Those very things which seem to be demonstrations of the change of His affections towards His, do as clearly proceed from love as those which seem to be the most genuine issues thereof. ‘But will not this encourage sin?’ He never tasted of the love of God that can seriously make this objection.” (Not sure if regular font is Owen... but i saw the italicized stuff at google books, straight from his COMMUNION WITH GOD.... get the reprint edited by Kelly Capic & Justin Taylor)

gathering gold

just stumbled across a collection of quotes i had forgotten about......

The promises of Scripture tell you that your Savior-God will guard you, guide you, keep you, feed you, care for you, uphold you, forgive your daily shortcomings, free you from Satan's snares and bondages, and shepherd you through this world to the next, where you will see and enjoy Him forever. --J. I. Packer, p.8 Great Joy

The sound of the silver bells of infinite love, free pardon, and abounding grace should make
you hasten to the hospital of mercy that you may receive healing for your sinfulness, strength for your feebleness and joy for your sorrow.

from Spurgeon's sermon, "Grace Abounding Over Abounding Sin" Rom. 5:20 #2012

John

She gave
You your name
First word she said to you
It was the last
John

You cried
When you first saw her
You wept
When you saw her last
John

She's gone to be with Jesus
She knew she couldn't stay
But with Jesus in your heart
She can't be far away

God knows she hurt
When she was with us
But now she hurts no more
Her pain has passed



I'll help you
I know you miss her
Be strong, my friend
Life is fast

She gave
You your name
First word she said to you
It was the last
John

In that sweet by and by
On that beautiful shore
in the sweet by and by
He's gonna see here again

In that sweet by and by
On that beautiful shore
in the sweet by and by
She will be waiting for you to come home

From 'The Robe' by Wes King
©1993 Emily Boothe, Inc. (BMI)

John Newton, Evil remaining in the Christian

I think my last letter turned upon the apostle's thought, Galatians 5:I7. "Ye cannot do the things that ye would." In the parallel place, Romans 5:19, there is another clause subjoined, "The evil which I would not, that I do." This, added to the former, would complete the dark side of my experience.

Permit me to tell your Lordship a little part (for some things must not, cannot be told), not of what I have read, but of what I have felt, in illustration of this passage. I would not be the sport and prey of wild, vain, foolish, and worse imaginations; but this evil is present with me: my heart is like a highway, like a city without walls or gates. Nothing so false, so frivolous, so absurd, so impossible, or so horrid, but it can obtain access, and that at any time, or in any place: neither the study, the pulpit, or even the Lord's table, exempt me from their intrusion.

I sometimes compare my words to the treble of an instrument, which my thoughts accompany with a kind of base, or rather anti-base, in which every rule of harmony is broken, every possible combination of discord and confusion is introduced, utterly inconsistent with, and contradictory to, the intended melody. Ah! what music would my praying and preaching often make in the ears of the Lord of Hosts, if he listened to them as they are mine only! By men, the upper part only (if I may so speak) is heard; and small cause there is for self-gratification, if they should happen to commend, when conscience tells me they would be struck with astonishment and abhorrence could they hear the whole.

But if this awful effect of heart-depravity cannot be wholly avoided in the present state of human nature, yet, at least, I would not allow and indulge it; yet this I find I do. In defiance of my best judgement and best wishes, I find something within me which cherishes and cleaves to those evils, from which I ought to start and flee, as I should if a toad or a serpent was put in my food or in my bed. Ah ! how vile must the heart (at least my heart) be, that can hold a parley with such abominations, when I so well know their nature and their tendency. Surely he who finds himself capable of this, may, without the least affectation of humility (however fair his outward conduct appears), subscribe himself less than the least of all saints, and of sinners the very chief.

I would not be influenced by a principle of self on any occasion; yet this evil I often do. I see the baseness and absurdity of such a conduct as clearly as I see the light of the day. I do not affect to be thought ten feet high, and I know that a desire of being thought wise or good, is equally contrary to reason and truth. I should be grieved or angry if my fellowcreatures supposed I had such a desire; and therefore I fear the very principle of self, of which I complain, has a considerable share in prompting my desires to conceal it. The pride of others often offends me, and makes me studious to hide my own; because their good opinion of me depends much upon their not perceiving it. But the Lord knows how this dead fly taints and spoils my best services, and makes them no better than specious sins.

I would not indulge vain reasonings concerning the counsels, ways, and providences of God; yet I am prone to do it. That the judge of all the earth will do right, is to me as evident and necessary as that two and two make four. I believe that he has a sovereign right to do what he will with his own, and that this sovereignty is but another name for the unlimited exercise of wisdom and goodness. But my reasonings are often such, as if I had never heard of these principles, or had formally renounced them. I feel the workings of a presumptuous spirit that would account for everything, and venture to dispute whatever it cannot comprehend. What an evil is this, for a potsherd of the earth to contend with its Maker!

I do not act thus towards my fellow-creatures; I do not find fault with the decisions of a judge, or the dispositions of a general, because, though I know they are fallible, yet I suppose they are wiser in their respective departments than myself. But I am often ready to take this liberty when it is most unreasonable and inexcusable. I would not cleave to a covenant of works: it should seem from the foregoing particulars, and many others which I could mention, that I have reasons enough to deter me from this. Yet even this I do. Not but that I say - I hope from my heart-Enter not into judgement with thy servant, O Lord.

I embrace it as a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners; and it is the main pleasure and business of my life to set forth the necessity and all-sufficiency of the Mediator between God and man, and to make mention of his righteousness even of his only. But here, as in everything else, I find a vast difference between my judgment and my experience. I am invited to take the water of life freely, yet often discouraged, because I have nothing wherewith to pay for it.

If I am at times favoured with some liberty from the above-mentioned evils, it rather gives me a more favoumble opinion of myself, than increases my admiration of the Lord's goodness to so unworthy a creature; and when the returning tide of my corruptions convinces me that I am still the same, an unbelieving legal spirit would urge me to conclude that the Lord is changed: at least, I feel a weariness of being beholden to him for such continued multiplied forgiveness; and I fear that some part of my striving against sin, and my desires after an increase of sanctification, arises from a secret wish that I might not be so absolutely and entirely indebted to him.

This, my Lord, is only a faint sketch of my heart; but it is taken from the life: it would require a volume rather than a letter to fill up the outlines. But I believe you will not regret that I choose to say no more upon such a subject. But, though my disease is grievous, it is not desperate; I have a gracious and infallible Physician. I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.