Playing Bass

Being a Christian is a lot like playing bass: 

make a mistake and people ridicule you, 

do everything right and no one notices. 

Unknown

*This post goes out to the boys from the Exceptions -

the best grunge-funk-pop-core band Claremont ever had.*

I Agree With Pastor Phelps

"Wear the old coat and buy the new book."

Austin Phelps (1829-1890)

300 Year Old Impressions of a Thunderstorm

There's quite the thunderstorm this rainy saturday morning. I've begun to undertake reading Jonathan Edwards Works and an excellent coincidence occurred. As I began reading the rain started, and I came across this dairy entry of his impression of God in storms and nature:

After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of every thing was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost every thing. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, the moon the stars; in the clouds, and the blue sky, in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature which used greatly to fix my mind; I often used to sit and view the moon for continuance; and in the day, present much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, so to speak, at the first appearance of a thunder-storm; and used to take the opportunity, at such times to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God. While thus engaged, it always seemed natural to me to sing, or chant forth my meditations; or, to speak my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice.

Holiness, as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it, appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. In other words, that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant flowers; all pleasant delightful, and undisturbed; enjoying a sweet calm, and the gently vivifying beams of the sun. The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom, to receive the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing, as it were in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms, to drink in the light of the sun. There was no part of creature-holiness, that I had so great a sense of its loveliness, as there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted after this, - to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be ALL, that I might become as a little child.

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol 1. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007, [UK Printing 1834]), xi-xii. 

Spurgeon On Neglecting the Spiritual Life

From Spurgeon's artillery of illustrations in Barbed Arrows comes this simile on the neglect of spiritual life:

"The other day we read in the newspapers of two persons in America being found dead from "starvation and cold," and we also read that each of these persons was possessed of a considerable sum of money. We say, 'What fools!' Men with sums of money about their persons, or hidden away in their rooms, and yet suffering the ills of want till they actually die of hunger - what madness is this! Are those more sane who injure and dwarf their spiritual life for the sake of intellectual pride, or carnal joy, or the esteem of men? Is not the spirit infinitely more precious than the body? Brethren, if we starve at all, let us starve our bodies, and not our spirits. If anything must be stunted, let it be the baser nature. Let us not live eagerly for this world, and languidly for the world to come. Having the Divine life within us, let us not neglect to feed it and supply its wants. "

-Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. Barbed Arrows: From the Quiver of C. H. Spurgeon (Toronto: Fleming H. Revell, 1896), 228-229.

Those Great Stories

I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. 

But we are. 

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. 

The ones that really mattered. 

Full of darkness and danger they were. 

And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. 

Because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? 

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. 

Even darkness must pass. 

A new day will come. 

And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. 

Those were the stories that stayed with you. 

That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. 

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. 

Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. 

They kept going because they were holding on to something. 

Two Rare Things

"Two things are said to be very rare 


in the sights of the world:

one is a young man humble, and 

the other is an old man content."

John Charles Ryle

Hell, is that a little extreme?

We don’t take sin seriously because 


we don’t take God seriously.

We have [become so familiar with the] God-belittling spirit of the age that our sins hardly trouble us at all. 

Our sin seems small because we regard God as small. 

And thus the penalty of hell—

eternal conscious suffering under the wrath of God—

always seems like an overreaction on God’s part. 

If we knew God better, we wouldn’t think like that.

Abridged quote of Denny Burk

Attitude of Worship

We honour the Son and

bring glory to the Father

by allowing the Spirit

to work powerfully though us.

Bob Kauflin

“When you're a baby you learn 

that you can’t go through walls” 

Another dedication post to my beloved professor.

PJG

Of Primary Importance

“There is no doctrine in Christianity so important as 

the doctrine of Christ crucified. 

There is none which the devil tries so hard to destroy. There is none which it is so needful for our own peace to understand. By ‘Christ crucified,’ I mean the doctrine that Christ suffered death on the cross to make atonement for our sins, that by His death He made a full, perfect, and complete satisfaction to God for the ungodly, and that through the merits of that death all who believe in Him are forgiven all their sins, however many and great, entirely, and forever.”

~ J.C. Ryle

On Temptation

No temptation has overtaken you
that is not common to man.
God is faithful,
and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,
but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,
that you may be able to endure it. 
1 Corinthians 10:13


This text is a needed encouragement in the times of temptation of God's faithfulness to those who trust in Jesus. 
Charles Spurgeon puts that ol' English preacher spin on it:


"It may help such a person if I remind him that there is no sin in being tempted. The sin is that of the tempter, not of the tempted. If you resist the temptation, there is something praiseworthy about your action. There is nothing praiseworthy about the temptation; that is evil, and only evil; but you did not tempt yourself, and he that tempted [you] must bear the blame of the temptation. You are evidently not blameworthy for thoughts that grieve you; they may prove that there is sin still remanining in you, but there is no sin in your being tempted. The sin is in your yielding to the temptation, and blessed shall you be if you can stand out against it. If you can overcome it, if your spirit does not yield to it, you shall even be blessed through it. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation." There is a blessedness even in the temptation, and though for the present it seemeth not to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth blessed fruit to those who are exercised thereby.

C.H. Spurgeon Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington (Thursday Evening September 27th, 1883). 

Sin and Christ

The more bitterness we taste in sin, 


the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ.


Thomas Watson

Jesus' Teaching on Man

"It is difficult to understand those who cling to the doctrine of the fundamental goodness of human nature, and do so in a generation which has witnessed two devastating world wars and especially the horrors which occasioned and accompanied the second.  It is even harder to understand those who attribute this belief to Jesus Christ.  For he taught nothing of the kind.   Jesus taught that within the soil of every man's heart there lie buried the ugly seeds of every conceivable sin -'evil thoughts, acts of fornication, of theft, murder, adultery, ruthless greed, and malice; fraud, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.' All thirteen are 'evil things', and they come out of the heart of 'the man' or 'the men', every man.  This is Jesus Christ's estimate of fallen human nature."

-From "Christ the Controversialist" (London: Tyndale Press; Downers Grove: IVP, 1970), pp. 139, 141. 
Excerpted from "Authentic Christianity", p. 146, by IVP. Thanks John Stott.

What is my calling or my vocation?

This question has been on my mind for some time.
Perhaps it has been plaguing you as well. Or maybe you are sure, dead-set, knowing God's intention and plan for you. What does God want me to do with my life? Regardless if you are certain or wondering - this section from John Frame's Doctrine of the Christian Life gives a much needed light on the subject of calling/ vocation:

"Although the term 'vocation' suggests a divine revelation to each individual of God's assignment to him, the Reformers did not consider vocation to be a special revelation. Special revelation is limited to Scripture. But God gives each believer wisdom to discover how God has gifted him and how he can best use that gift in God's kingdom. That wisdom should of course be compared with the wisdom of other believers, who can help us to evaluate our gifts. It would not be wrong to describe this process as 'existential revelation'... In vocation, God enables us to apply the principles of Scripture to our own lives and to our circumstances. In this process, we come to see God's will for our lives and to gain assurance that we are in the place where God wants us to be.

Vocation comes to us, then, by way of
(1) God giving gifts to us,
(2) the [Holy] Spirit enabling us to discern those gifts through self-examination and through the confirmation of others in the church,
(3) God providing oppourtunities for us to develop and exercise those gifts,
(4) God providing wisdom so that we can use those gifts
[a] in ways that glorify him,
[b] extend his kingdom,
[c] fulfill his mandates,
[d] and in the end enjoy him forever."

- John Frame, A Theology of Lordship: The Doctrine of the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 2008), 312-313. 

Whether we are called for Christian ministry, or called to work an honest job -
one thing is for sure: that we be apart of the local church. There we serve God by serving others, consistently having Colossians 3:21 as our focus:
"And whatever you do, in word or deed, 
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him." 

Male Superiority?

Doesn't man have superiority over women? What should we think of the Muslim approach? 


"Because men and women are equal (by creation and in Christ), there can be no question of the inferiority of either to the other.  But because they are complementary, there can be no question of the identity of one with the other.  Further, this double truth throws light on male-female relationships and roles.  Because they have been created by God with equal dignity, men and women must respect, love, serve, and not despise one another.  Because they have been created complementary to each other, men and women must recognize their differences and not try to eliminate them or usurp one another's distinctives."

*From "Issues Facing Christians Today" (revised and enlarged edn. London: Collins/Marshall Pickering, 1990), p. 263.
Excerpted from "Authentic Christianity", p. 145, IVP. Thanks John Stott.