The Wrath Let Loose Upon His Son

"Yet it was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer." Isaiah 53:10

Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious demons, nor the groans of the damned creatures--give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin--as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son! Never did divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our Savior's countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans--when God had turned His smiling face from Him, and thrust His sharp knife into His heart, which forced that terrible cry from Him, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!'

Stephen Charnock (Grace Gems)

Slowing Down

Hey everyone,

The blogging will be slowing down for the next few weeks, as this an extremely busy time of the year for my job with the Law School.

I will be posting when I get a chance but for the next three weeks it will be slow.

God bless,

Doug

What Are We Like at Home?

The way in which a man lives in his home is vital. It will not do to be a saint abroad--and a devil at home! There are some of that kind. They are wonderfully sweet at a prayer meeting, but they are dreadfully sour to their wives and children. This will never do! Every genuine believer should say, and mean it, 'I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.' It is in the home that we get the truest proof of godliness!

'What sort of a man is he?' said one to George Whitefield; and Whitefield answered, 'I cannot say, for I never lived with him.' That is the way to test a man--to live with him.

(Charles Spurgeon, sermon #2362)

On The Church

Christianity has thus passed through many stages of its earthly life, and yet has hardly reached the period of full manhood in Christ Jesus. During this long succession of centuries it has outlived the destruction of Jerusalem, the dissolution of the Roman empire, fierce persecutions from without, and heretical corruptions from within, the barbarian invasion, the confusion of the dark ages, the papal tyranny, the shock of infidelity, the ravages of revolution, the attacks of enemies and the errors of friends, the rise and fall of proud kingdoms, empires, and republics, philosophical systems, and social organizations without number. And, behold, it still lives, and lives in greater strength and wider extent than ever; controlling the progress of civilization, and the destinies of the world; marching over the ruins of human wisdom and folly, ever forward and onward; spreading silently its heavenly blessings from generation to generation, and from country to country, to the ends of the earth. It can never die; it will never see the decrepitude of old age; but, like its divine founder, it will live in the unfading freshness of self-renewing youth and the unbroken vigor of manhood to the end of time, and will outlive time itself. Single denominations and sects, human forms of doctrine, government, and worship, after having served their purpose, may disappear and go the way of all flesh; but the Church Universal of Christ, in her divine life and substance, is too strong for the gates of hell. She will only exchange her earthly garments for the festal dress of the Lamb’s Bride, and rise from the state of humiliation to the state of exaltation and glory. Then at the coming of Christ she will reap the final harvest of history, and as the church triumphant in heaven celebrate and enjoy the eternal sabbath of holiness and peace. This will be the endless end of history, as it was foreshadowed already at the beginning of its course in the holy rest of God after the completion of his work of creation.

-Philip Schaff-

If We Answer

He is fierce and He is tender
He's our judge and our defender
And He calls us to surrender
For He loves us to the core
He is frightening and resplendent
He is present and transcendent
He's enmeshed and independent
And He cannot love us more
So He calls our names
And we fear Him for His goodness
For we know He won't be tamed

So He calls our names
And we wonder if we answer
Will we ever be the same

He's a comfort and a terror
A destroyer and repairer
He's more terrible and fairer
Than our mortal tongues can say
He is hidden and revealing
He's appalling and appealing
He's our wounding and our healing
And He will not turn away

Holy Lamb of God
And He cannot love us more
Holy Lamb of God

He is wild, He is wonder
He is whispering and He is thunder
He is over, He is under
And He suffered for our gain
He's a comfort and a danger
He's a father and a stranger
He's enthroned and in a manger
And He says we're worth His pain

Written by Douglas McKelvey, Scott Denté and Phil Naish

Godly Sorrow

"Godly sorrow worketh repentance."
- 2Cor. 7:10

Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. Repentance is too choice a flower to grow in nature’s garden. Pearls grow naturally in oysters, but penitence never shows itself in sinners except divine grace works it in them. If thou hast one particle of real hatred for sin, God must have given it thee, for human nature’s thorns never produced a single fig. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh."

True repentance has a distinct reference to the Saviour. When we repent of sin, we must have one eye upon sin and another upon the cross, or it will be better still if we fix both our eyes upon Christ and see our transgressions only, in the light of his love.

True sorrow for sin is eminently practical. No man may say he hates sin, if he lives in it. Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but experimentally-as a burnt child dreads fire. We shall be as much afraid of it, as a man who has lately been stopped and robbed is afraid of the thief upon the highway; and we shall shun it-shun it in everything-not in great things only, but in little things, as men shun little vipers as well as great snakes. True mourning for sin will make us very jealous over our tongue, lest it should say a wrong word; we shall be very watchful over our daily actions, lest in anything we offend, and each night we shall close the day with painful confessions of shortcoming, and each morning awaken with anxious prayers, that this day God would hold us up that we may not sin against him.

Sincere repentance is continual. Believers repent until their dying day. This dropping well is not intermittent. Every other sorrow yields to time, but this dear sorrow grows with our growth, and it is so sweet a bitter, that we thank God we are permitted to enjoy and to suffer it until we enter our eternal rest.

-C.H. Spurgeon-

Divine Guidance

In general, God guides and directs His people, by affording them, in answer to prayer, the light of His Holy Spirit, who enables them to understand and to love the Scriptures.

The word of God furnishes us with just principles, and right apprehensions, to regulate our judgments and affections, and thereby to influence and direct our conduct. Those who study the Scriptures, in a humble dependence upon Divine teaching, are taught to make a true estimate of everything around them, and are gradually formed into a spirit of submission to the will of God. They thereby discover the nature and duties of their several situations and relations in life, and the snares and temptations to which they are exposed.

The word of God dwelling richly in them, is a preservative from error, a light to their feet, and a spring of strength and consolation. By treasuring up the doctrines, precepts, promises, examples, and exhortations of Scripture, in their minds, and daily comparing themselves with the rule by which they walk, they grow into a habitual frame of spiritual wisdom, and acquire a gracious taste, which enables them to judge of right and wrong with a degree of readiness and certainty, as a musical ear judges of sounds. And they are seldom mistaken, because they are influenced by the love of Christ, which rules in their hearts, and a regard to the glory of God, which is the great object they have in view.

The Lord, whom they serve, does not disappoint their expectations. He leads them by a right way, preserves them from a thousand snares, and satisfies them that He is and will be their guide even unto death.

(John Newton's Letters)

Guilty of Guilt - James Sire

James Sire, in a book called the Universe Next Door does and excellent job of explaining that people who hold to a naturalistic worldview can have no real foundation for ethics, but there still arises feelings of guilt. The problem is, in this type of world there is no solution to the guilt.

"In a universe where God is dead, people are not guilty of violating a moral law, they are only guilty of guilt, and that is a very serious, for nothing can be done about it. If one had sinned, there might be atonement. If one had broken a law, the lawmaker might forgive the criminal. But if one is only guilty of guilt, there is no way to solve the very personal problem. And that states the case of the nihilist, for no one can avoid acting as if moral values exist and as if there is some bar of justice that measures guilt by objective standards. But there is no bar of justice and we are left not in sin but in guilt. Very serious indeed."

-James Sire, The Universe Next Door-

Praise God for His moral law, and praise Him more for His atonement.

Doug

Grace and Nothing More

I thought while on this voyage long
My strength God would increase
And at some point along the way
My struggling would cease
I fought with boldness, wind and wave
And yet the skirmish lost
Exhausted, all provision gone
The channel still uncrossed
As lifeless I in stillness drift
Just strength enough to pray
It's only then I feel the surge
That speeds me on my way

By His own hand and faithfulness
He steers me toward a distant shore
And the wind that billows in the sail
Is grace and nothing more
Yes, it's grace and nothing more

I seek the bloom of holiness
He leads me deep within
Reveals the hardness of my heart
Unearths my hidden sin
My barren soul groans in despair
In brokenness I cry
Oh, God, I find no hope in me
A smile His sweet reply
For where the tears of brokenness
Have soaked the fallow ground
The tender shoots of holiness
Now spring up all around

Strength in my weakness
Joy through the pain
Hope when I'm helpless
Loss my greatest gain

Words by Jon Mohr

On Church History (Part 2)

The history of the church is the rise and progress of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, for the glory of God and the salvation of the world. It begins with the creation of Adam, and with that promise of the serpent-bruiser, which relieved the loss of the paradise of innocence by the hope of future redemption from the curse of sin. It comes down through the preparatory revelations under the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, to the immediate forerunner of the Saviour, who pointed his followers to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. But this part of its course was only introduction. Its proper starting-point is the incarnation of the Eternal Word, who dwelt among us and revealed his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; and next to this, the miracle of the first Pentecost, when the Church took her place as a Christian institution, filled with the Spirit of the glorified Redeemer and entrusted with the conversion of all nations. Jesus Christ, the God-Man and Saviour of the world, is the author of the new creation, the soul and the head of the church, which is his body and his bride. In his person and work lies all the fulness of the Godhead and of renewed humanity, the whole plan of redemption, and the key of all history from the creation of man in the image of God to the resurrection of the body unto everlasting life.

-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church-

On Church History (Part 1)

The central current and ultimate aim of universal history is the Kingdom of God established by Jesus Christ. This is the grandest and most comprehensive institution in the world, as vast as humanity and as enduring as eternity. All other institutions are made subservient to it, and in its interest the whole world is governed. It is no after-thought of God, no subsequent emendation of the plan of creation, but it is the eternal forethought, the controlling idea, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all his ways and works. The first Adam is a type of the second Adam; creation looks to redemption as the solution of its problems. Secular history, far from controlling sacred history, is controlled by it, must directly or indirectly subserve its ends, and can only be fully understood in the central light of Christian truth and the plan of salvation. The Father, who directs the history of the world, "draws to the Son," who rules the history of the church, and the Son leads back to the Father, that "God may be all in all." "All things," says St. Paul, "were created through Christ and unto Christ: and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence." Col_1:16-18. "The Gospel," says John von Müller, summing up the final result of his lifelong studies in history, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpreter of all revolutions, the key of all seeming contradictions of the physical and moral worlds; it is life — it is immortality."

-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church-

My Soap Box

One of the main problems I see, is that the church is an extremely low point in terms of it’s education. I have heard it said time and time again, (even from pastors) that doctrine is a tool of Satan. The sad fact is that ignorance is the real tool of Satan, and men who say such things should not be pastors. Because the minute they say, “Jesus died for your sins” they have just used doctrine. There is true doctrine and there is false doctrine. True doctrine sets people free and false doctrine is Satan’s tool to make captives. Hence, we are to “gird our loins with truth”

We live in a time where we have the writings of some of the greatest men and women of God available at our fingertips, and the Word of God is available in almost every language and yet we still do not dive deep into it’s teachings because we are scared it might cause division. We’ve started to turn churches into businesses where we must keep our customers happy. We trade evangelism for marketing plans. In an effort draw people in, we replace objective truth with eastern mysticism. We try to make people feel God instead of teaching His truths. This is seen clearly in much of the new music in the church. Many of new songs focus on how we feel. Note to songwriters, if you want to write a song that is going to last longer than a few years before it becomes passé, you are going to need to start writing songs that speak of the eternal truths of God, like “A mighty Fortress is our God” or “Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy.” Don’t get me wrong not all new music is like this, and style is not the issue; it’s content. And emotional worship is not the problem either, but when we write songs and sermons merely to try to get emotional for emotions sake we’ve missed the point. Not to mention the fact that because many churches are not equipped to teach deep doctrine, or simply do not do so in hopes of not causing division, they leave many in their flocks vulnerable to the enticements of many of the same vain philosophies that have trapped church members since it’s beginning, for there is really “nothing new under the sun”.

In doctrines absence, we fill our sermons with pop psychology that leads to sermon titles like, “Five ways to safety proof your marriage”, “Finding the Champion in You”, or “How to Guard Yourself From Hurt” (Joel Osteen). It’s not what these sermons say, that is wrong, it’s what they leave out, such as a deep understanding of the sinfulness of man, the atonement, the incarnation, vicarious sacrifice, and the exclusivity of Christ. May we as children of God continue to seek God’s truths and reject those teachings outside orthodoxy. And as for those within orthodoxy, may we sharpen each other in love as we grow in the grace and knowledge of God.

Praise God for pastors and churches who proclaim the truth without compromise. May we all desire to know more of the truth.

Majestic Beams of Holiness

"Oh, that I might live to see that day when professors shall not walk in vain show; when they shall please themselves no more with a name to live, being spiritually dead; when they shall no more (as many of them now are) be a company of frothy, vain, and unserious persons, but the majestic beams of holiness shining from their heavenly and serious conversation shall awe the world, and command reverence from all who are about them; when they shall warm the hearts of those who come nigh them, so that men shall say, 'God is truly in these men!'"

JOHN FLAVEL