Not Without Pain

"It is naive to think one can function with the simple formula: People have problems and the gospel resolves them. The fact is, the gospel generates in individual lives and in society a new set of problems. One has only to love impartially and hatred is threatened and stirred to violence. One has only to speak the truth and falsehood takes the stand with pleasing lies. Invite persons of different social and economic backgrounds around the same table and the fellowship is strained, often breaking apart ... Plant the cross in a room and the upwardly mobile convert it into a ladder. Evil, by whatever name it is called, will not sit idly by and allow the gospel to transform a community ... Let the preacher, therefore, be encouraged ... when having to deal with those problems which clearly have their origin in the fact that the gospel has been released in the community. A difference is being made, and that is seldom without pain."

F.B. Craddock "Preaching to Corinthians" ~ As quoted by Ben Witherington III in his commentary on 1 Corinthians.

On this Mountain

In my personal Bible reading this morning I came across a passage of scripture that I don't think that I have ever noticed before. It is in Isaiah 25, and what initially caught my attention was the ESV Bible's heading for this chapter: it was titled -- God will swallow up death forever.

Quite often, as I am reading through these Old Testament Prophets, my brain will slip into neutral: I will still be reading, but I have ceased to process the words. Sometimes this happens because of my Adult A.D.D. Sometimes it is associated with the fact that it is a pronouncement of judgement against some ancient nation... the Moabites or the Ammonites or such. This isn't an excuse, and I hate that I do it, but I'm just being honest... I struggle. But then, I will come upon a passage that clearly speaks out about something directly connected to me. In this case it rings true to my own benefits found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

After the crucifixion and after Christ is resurrected, there is a story in the gospels of Jesus walking along a road with a couple of his disciples. At first they don't recognize him, but he begins to explain to them that the Law and the Prophets (The Old Testament for us) is all about him! (Luke 24:27)

When you read these few verse, think of Christ. Think of how you have benefited... and rejoice!

Isaiah 25:6-9
[6] On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
[7] And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
[8] He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
[9] It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the LORD; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (ESV)

by no means

I just started a surprisingly good book. I just started it this morning, and I am already on chapter 4... or maybe it is chapter 5. Either way, I am working through this book quickly, but I say, "a surprisingly good book" because it has been on my kindle for a while. Usually when I get a new good book, I try to consume it right away, but this one has been hiding in the shadows.

The book is called How the Gospel Brings Us All the Way Home, by Derek Thomas. I will save a synopsis for when I am ready to give the book a full review, but I do want to share a quote from the book that prompted this blogging moment.

"Of course, salvation by grace rather than our performance can be seen as a license to sin (antinomianism). Paul's response in Romans is something like this: if we are not tempted to think like that, we have not understood the gospel."

I haven't thought of it like this before. Now, Derek Thomas has just been explaining our salvation by grace and the reality that there truly is, "... no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Our salvation not depending on our performance is so wonderful, but it is a little unnerving when you begin to understand it. He goes on to say,

"Grace must raise the temptation to think we can sin as we please; if it does not, we have not understood the true extent of grace. However, at no time can we yield to the temptation to think this way, because Christians are called to a life of holiness -- holiness motivated by gratitude for all that God has done for them in the gospel of Jesus Christ."

This is so true. Like I said, I haven't thought of it this way before, but the Gospel is really scandalous! I can hardly believe it sometimes.

There is no Kryptonite for God's Grace.

It is so natural and so easy to get bogged down in the idea that what we've done or what we've been through is simply too much for grace to overcome. We declare ourselves untouchable, unreachable, or un-healable. Remember Paul's words: "Forget what is behind." 

 Refusing to forget these things, in the end, this is just a subtle form of pride. In doing this we assume that we're the one person who is too much of a problem for Jesus. We're the one nut He can't crack. We've got the one situation for which the cross of Christ is inadequate.  

Oh sure, He can save Paul, He can deliver Peter, and He can make all things new. But not me! I've got grace's kryptonite. And this is how refusing to forget what lies behind is prideful.  

On the flip side of that, because of the cross and because salvation is from Christ alone, we can actually come to boast all the more in our dark pasts. No, we do not boast as a way of glorifying sin or championing ourselves, but instead to magnify the wonders of the grace and mercy of Christ.  

~ Matt Chandler in To Live is Christ

The Explicit Gospel - Book Review

I just finished listening to the Christian Audio version of The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler with Jared Wilson.

Of all of the books that I've read on the Gospel in the last few years, I would rank this one near the top.  Matt Chandler does an excellent job of explaining the Gospel in an... well... explicit way.  He describes the Gospel in the broader perspective as the "Gospel in the Air" and the "Gospel on the Ground" is the more personal aspect of the Gospel. He then discusses the dangers of focusing on one aspect of the Gospel without taking into account both the big and the small picture of what God is doing.

I especially appreciated his personal approach, sharing stories and experiences that illustrated different aspects of the Gospel.  In many of his stories he was willing to share how he had struggled or gotten it wrong in the past; times where he had shared the gospel in not-so-perfect ways, but God's grace was even in those events of his life, as he so adequately shares.  One story he titled, "The Dirty Rose" was especially touching.

If you have questions about the Gospel or you are simply desiring a deeper understanding of the Gospel, then this is a good book for you.

David Cochran Heath, the voice talent for many of Christian Audio's works, does an excellent job of reading through this book.  In my opinion, a good voice talent will cause you to forget that you are listening to an audio book, and it will feel more like you are listening to someone talk to you while you are driving down the road.

Visit Christian Audio to purchase this book or to view other Christian Audio Titles.

Masters of Thought

Justin Taylor just shared a great quote from J. Greshem Machen:

We are all agreed that at least one great function of the Church is the conversion of individual men. The missionary movement is the great religious movement of our day. Now it is perfectly true that men must be brought to Christ one by one. There are no labor-saving devices in evangelism. It is all hard-work. 

And yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that all men are equally well prepared to receive the gospel. 

It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the absence of that makes even the best preparation useless. 

But as a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. 

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. 

We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. 

Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root. . . .
What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate. 

So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity. . . . 

What more pressing duty than for those who have received the mighty experience of regeneration, who, therefore, do not, like the world, neglect that whole series of vitally relevant facts which is embraced in Christian experience—what more pressing duty than for these men to make themselves masters of the thought of the world in order to make it an instrument of truth instead of error?

I found this quote to be especially helpful to my thinking as a followup to what we are learning at church in our Ephesians study.

If you had the mental endurance to make it through that quote, please share your thoughts.

Not of Us

I've started typing this post four times, but it just isn't working.  When I have a thought on my mind that I want to post on the blog, I usually like to build up to it a bit before I really get to what I want to talk about.  I like to think that I am taking the reader (if there are any) through the process that led me up to that thought.  Today, I just can't seem to get the words to flow correctly.  So, if you would permit me, I would like to jump directly to the thought on my mind instead of building up to it.

Here it is: What is going on with people who leave the church?

I don't know about where you live, but Danville is full of people who've gone to church at some point in their life, most likely when they were young, but now they don't.  In fact, I've met many who have attended the small church where I am currently the pastor at some point in their past.

What is alarming is how many who will leave the church, but they don't believe that has any implications on their faith or their future destination.  Consider what John has to say about this:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
(1 John 2:19 ESV)

There are many implications in this passage.  Some of those implications might set you ill at ease.  It should.

Notice, if you would though, the implied benefit for those who stay.  The spiritual reality of those who have left has become plain to us.  In other words, we don't need to be bewildered or even apathetic about those who've left the church.  That is the reaction that many have.  They see their friend or neighbor or relative that used to go to church.  Instead of concern for them, the reactions tend to border on blatant disregard.  I mean, how can you really love someone without being concerned over their eternal state?  If they have left the church, then you have every reason to believe that their souls are in imminent danger and no reason to believe that they are probably fine.  They are in need of our prayers, and if necessary, some doctrinal correction.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing.

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

 B.B. Warfield [from bbwarfield.com]

The G.O.S.P.E.L.

What is the G.O.S.P.E.L.?

G.O.S.P.E.L. from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.

via NHCC

What is the Gospel?

I just finished listening to the Christian Audio Version of What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert.

It is an excellent little book that adequately deals with the question in the title... Which, I might add, is a question that needs to be asked. The book begins by showing the various responses that the author has encountered when asking the same question. To have clarity on this subject is essential.

After enlightening us to our need to ask the question, Greg Gilbert does a great job of laying out the basic elements of the gospel message, while helping his readers do the same thing. He answers the question by looking to the scriptures and then shows the various examples of that same gospel message. Without sounding too deeply theological, he then goes through each element of the Gospel message and brings additional clarity to the subject.

Although I had already read through this book, the audio version of this book was excellently performed bringing an even better understanding of the book and highlighting aspects that had gone unnoticed the first time.

As a Pastor I saw this book as an essential for each of the members of my church because we are to be about the Gospel! I highly recommend this book.

Osteen

John MacArthur does some decent exposure to the reality of the false teaching done by Joel Osteen.

Preach Christ or Go Home—And Other Spurgeon Quotes on Christless Preaching – Justin Taylor

[I stole this post from Justin Taylor: Between Two Worlds.  Please visit his blog! Always Great Stuff!]

Guest Post by Tony Reinke

The very idea of a “Christless sermon” appalled Charles Spurgeon. It was a plague he confronted repeatedly (and vividly) in his own sermons. Although sometimes overstated to make his point, his words are a healthy challenge today over 100 years after his death. Here’s a small collection of colorful quips:

“The motto of all true servants of God must be, ‘We preach Christ; and him crucified.’ A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.” [7/9/1876; sermon #2899]

“Leave Christ out? O my brethren, better leave the pulpit out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ’s name in it, it ought to be his last, certainly the last that any Christian ought to go to hear him preach.”[undated; sermon #768]

“Leave Christ out of the preaching and you shall do nothing. Only advertise it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread without flour; put it in every paper, ‘Bread without flour’ and you may soon shut up your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other tradesmen. … A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there. And I mean by Christ not merely his example and the ethical precepts of his teaching, but his atoning blood, his wondrous satisfaction made for human sin, and the grand doctrine of ‘believe and live.’” [10/23/1881; sermon #1625]

“I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he would come and hear me no more; but if I preached a sermon without Christ in it, he would come. Ah, he will never come while this tongue moves, for a sermon without Christ in it—a Christless sermon! A brook without water; a cloud without rain; a well which mocks the traveler; a tree twice dead, plucked up by the root; a sky without a sun; a night without a star. It were a realm of death—a place of mourning for angels and laughter for devils. O Christian, we must have Christ! Do see to it that every day when you wake you give a fresh savor of Christ upon you by contemplating his person. Live all the day, trying as much as lieth in you, to season your hearts with him, and then at night, lie down with him upon your tongue.” [3/6/1864; sermon #558]

“Sooner by far would I go to a bare table, and eat from a wooden porringer something that would appease my appetite, than I would go to a well-spread table on which there was nothing to eat. Yes, it is Christ, Christ, Christ whom we have to preach; and if we leave him out, we leave out the very soul of the gospel. Christless sermons make merriment for hell. Christless preachers, Christless Sunday school teachers, Christless class leaders, Christless tract distributors—what are all these doing? They are simply setting the mill to grind without putting any grist into the hopper. All their labor is in vain. If you leave Jesus Christ out, you are simply beating the air, or going to war without any weapon with which you can smite the foe.” [2/11/1866; sermon #3288]

“The Spirit of God bears no witness to Christless sermons. Leave Jesus out of your preaching, and the Holy Spirit will never come upon you. Why should he? Has he not come on purpose that he may testify of Christ? Did not Jesus say, ‘He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you’? Yes, the subject was Christ, and nothing but Christ, and such is the teaching which the Spirit of God will own. Be it ours never to wander from this central point: may we determine to know nothing among men but Christ and his cross.” [5/30/1880; sermon #1540]

“Where there is nothing of Christ, brethren, there is nothing of unction, nothing of savor, and a man is quite right not to attend such a ministry as that. Leave Christ out of your preaching, and you have taken the milk from the children, you have taken the strong meat from the men; but if your object as a teacher or preacher is to glorify Christ, and to lead men to love him and trust him, why, that is the very work upon which the heart of God himself is set. The Lord and you are pulling together.” [4/17/1887; sermon #2409]

“Christ not only supplies the necessities of his people, but he gives them abundant and superabundant joy in the luxuries of his grace. You do not really preach the gospel if you leave Christ out; if he be omitted, it is not the gospel. You may invite men to listen to your message, but you are only inviting them to gaze upon an empty table unless Christ is the very center and substance of all that you set before them.” [6/16/1878; sermon #2787]

What do I think about the prosperity gospel?

I think I agree with John Piper.

What is the Gospel?

I just finished reading another book on my summer reading list. This one was called, What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert. I heard about this book on several different blogs, had heard such good things about it that I mentally added it to my list. When an opportunity to purchase a few books came up, this one made it on that list.

This book falls right in line with my renewed love of the gospel message. Most of what I have been reading lately has lined up with that, whether I have done that purposely or not. Greg Gilbert, does a great job of lying out the elements of the gospel message, while helping his readers do the same thing. This book is about the message of the Cross of Christ and it would be a great book to buy in bulk and hand out to people who are interested in hearing about that message.

I have learned not to write long drawn out posts on this blog, but I do want to share at least one quote from the book. The one I chose isn't a quote that is in any way a summarizing quote on what this book is about, but it is a realistic quote as to the response we face when sharing this message.

"But really, we should just face it. The message of the cross is going to sound like nonsense to the people around us. It's going to make us Christians sound like fools, and it most certainly is going to undermine our attempts to "relate" to non-Christians and prove to them that we're just as cool and harmless as the next guy. Christians can always get the world to think they are cool -- right up to the moment they start talking about being saved by a crucified man. And that's where coolness evaporates, no matter how carefully you've cultivated it."

What is the Gospel? is a worthwhile read. If you have the extra cash, I absolutely recommend this purchase.

Cross Centered

I just completed the book Living the Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney.

When I was considering books for my summer's reading, I tried to pick books using two basic criteria.  One, I wanted to pick books that I had heard (trusted) people talking about, and two, I wanted to pick books that focus on the gospel.  This book almost defines those two criteria.

To be absolutely honest, when I write about a book on this blog, one of my goals is to keep a record of books that I have read since I started this blog.  I haven't done a very good job of that, there have been quite a few books that never made it to the blog.  The other reason why I make a point of mentioning books on this blog is to promote the book.  When I read a book that I believe has a message that is worth hearing, I try to talk about it in such a way to get you to buy it and read it.  As evidence of its quality, I want to include that I started it last Friday, I believe, and finished it today.  So, with this book, I am simply going to say, buy it and read it.

This book is about the gospel.  It is about the cross of Christ.  It is about the central point, not only of the Bible, but of all of human history.  It is about the thing that should be the central point in your life.  I will leave you with one quote:

The gospel isn't one class among many that you'll attend during your life as a Christian -- the gospel is the whole building where all the classes take place!  Rightly approached, all the topics you'll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you within the walls of the glorious gospel.

Click the link and buy the book.  It is worth the read.

The Gospel

What is the Gospel? from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

[HT: Justin Taylor]

My Daily Need

The gospel is so foolish (according to my natural wisdom), so scandalous (according to my conscience), and so incredible (according to my timid heart), that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should. There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel.

Quote by Milton Vincent in A Gospel Primer.

Embracing Accusation

Excellent video!



[HT: my wife]

Look...

I just re-started reading through some of Spurgeon's Sermons. It is a set that I received as a gift from my wife several years ago. I read this yesterday, and thought I would share it.

First, to whom does God tell us to look for salvation?  O, does it not lower the pride of man, when we hear the Lord say, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth?"  It is not, "Look to your priest, and be ye saved:"  if you did, there would be another god, and beside him there would be some one else.  It is not, "Look to yourself;" if so, then there would be a being who might arrogate some of the praise of salvation.  But it is "Look to me."

How frequently you who are coming to Christ look to yourselves.  "O!" you say, "I do not repent enough."  That is looking to yourself.  "I do not believe enough."  That is looking to yourself.  "I am too unworthy."  That is looking to yourself.  "I cannot discover," says another, "that I have any righteousness."  It is quite right to say that you have not any righteousness; but it is quite wrong to look for any.

~ C.H. Spurgeon

STOP and watch...

I have been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount at church.  It has been a great experience so far, and I have learned bucket loads of great gospel truth.  The big blaring truth is that God is infinite in His wisdom.

I just watched a short video that really falls in line with that I have been seeing as I study.  It is worth a watch:





[ht: 4tunate]

By the way, I haven't read Crazy Love yet, but it is on my list. If you've read it, let me know what you think.