Category: Faith

I am excited to see that the theme for the 2012 Desiring God Conference is sanctification. It is subtitled, “God’s Work and Ours in the Mystery of Sanctification.” This is kind of a hot topic and debate in the Reformed theology community right now, and the timing could not be better. It is an extremely important topic, one that continues to be debated since the time of the Reformation.  I am looking forward to hearing it (though not in person). The video below gives an overview of the conference.

Sneak Preview of Our 2012 National Conference from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Al Mohler on After-Birth Abortion – “For years now, pro-life activists have been lectured that “slippery slope” arguments are false. This article makes clear the fact that our warnings have not been based in a slippery slope argument, but in the very reality of abortion. Abortion implies infanticide. If the unborn child lacks sufficient moral status by the fact that it is unborn, the baby in the nursery, it is now argued, has also not yet developed human personhood.”

What is a truly “relevant” church? – “The Welsh preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, was approached after a worship service by a woman who was visiting his church. She said something to the effect, “My marriage is falling apart, but I don’t need to hear another sermon on marriage. The sermon you just preached on the greatness of God will do more for my marriage than all those marriage sermons combined.”

Why children should worship in church with their parents – a list of sound, biblical reasons. I am looking forward to part 2 tomorrow.

Do not think on these things – We are to both put off our old selves and put on Christ. Both are necessary to grow in grace. I have always appreciated the Reformed confessions that discuss in great detail both the positive and negative commands in each of the Ten Commandments. Here, Paul Tautges provides a list from Phil. 4:8 of things NOT to think on. I think this is especially helpful for children. Which means this is required reading for my children.

Why we should read the Puritans – My soul has not benefited more from any written word, besides the Bible, than it has from the writings of the Puritans. I don’t know where I would be without them. Here is a short list of why they are so helpful and relevant today.

Don’t let how you view and use the Word of God in your fight of faith be affected by our technological world, where all information is at our fingertips and not in our heads so much anymore. It must not be so with the Word of God. This article is a fantastic piece of advice and warning.

My point is this: one of the consequences of the internet-trained brain seems to be an inability to hide very much – not much of the Word of God, to be sure – in our hearts. That results in a crippling weakness in the battle for godliness.

If you want to, test yourself. What do you do, where do you look, when you want to find “that verse,” you know, the one on the tip of your tongue? Do you flick to BibleWorks or Logos, pull up some Scripture text on your e-platform and do a quick search? Was it ever stored in your heart? Are you looking merely for a reminder, or have you become so accustomed to ready accessibility and easy search that you no longer bother storing it in your heart, unconsciously succumbing to the suggestion that since it’s right at your fingertips you don’t need to worry? Have you forgotten how to remember?

How long was Christ in the wilderness? Forty days and forty nights. (You know the batteries on pretty much any device have died by then.) What state was he in? Desperately hungry and thirsty. Who came to him? The arch-enemy, the Adversary. What were flung at him? A series of pointed and powerful temptations striking at his very identity and destiny. And what did the Lord do, without the help of any electronic aids or ready-references? He dug into the depths of Deuteronomy to bring forth three perfectly-forged weapons with which to smite the foe, three mighty “Thus says the Lord” declarations which shattered Satan’s assault and sent him from the field a beaten foe. The word was hidden in the Saviour’s heart, and he did not sin against God.

Look more closely, and you understand what that means. Satan takes and twists Scripture to make his perverted case. The Lord Christ not only knows enough to see through those corrupting quotations, but he has upon his holy lips the fruit of a heart in which the Word of God is thoroughly hidden, the truth stored up in order to be brought forth as occasion demands in order to keep him from sin and in the path of righteousness.

What of you? You have one primary offensive weapon with which to do battle against sin: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6.17). Can you afford to have that potent blade wrapped up in the electronic cobwebs of some computer programme when you need it for the fight? Do you not know from bitter experience that you do not have time to draw the sword from the depths of your electronic device when Satan comes roaring in against you? You need it sitting in your hand, you need it stored up in your heart ready for immediate deployment when the enemy comes upon you unawares. To use a more modern metaphor, you cannot afford to wander this battlefield with all your ammunition stored at the bottom of your backpack; you need your weapon locked and loaded at all times.

Great article (republished) by Dr. Phil Ryken on how to listen to a sermon.

“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.” (Revelation 12:10, ESV)

Clark Howard, and I suppose other consumer advocates, commonly talks about what to do when debt collectors call. In particular, he discusses deceptive debt collectors who try to collect a debt that does not even belong to the person, or may not legally be collectable because it is too old and the statute of limitations has expired. These deceptive collectors don’t care if the debt is legitimate or not; they just want to get money out of you any way they can, even if the debt does not belong to you. He goes on to give advice about the proper legal way to notify them that the debt is not yours, and they legally cannot bother you about that debt again.

Satan is the ultimate debt collector. He is our adversary, the accuser of God’s people. He prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). He will come to you today to accuse you; he likely already has, as soon as you woke up this morning. The author of lies comes to you to tell you of your guilt, of the debt you owe. He comes to tell you that you are a worthless sinner, undeserving of God’s love, a disobedient rebel who owes a debt to God for your sin, a debt you can never repay. Well, you are a sinner who does not deserve God’s love, and so am I. But if we are Christians, in Christ we are of infinite worth to God. We are united to Christ, and every spiritual blessing is ours in Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

So how should we respond to the accuser, to the spiritual debt collector? Thomas Watson offers this advice, from Song of Solomon, where we are presented as the bride of Christ, and He as our Husband:

Make use of this marriage relationship with Christ… when the law brings in its indictments against you. The law says, ‘Here there are so many debts to be paid’, and it demands satisfaction. Acknowledge the debt, but turn over all to your Husband, Christ. It is a maxim in the law that the suit must not go against the wife, as long as the husband is living. Tell Satan when he accuses you, ‘It is true that the debt is mine, but go to my Husband, Christ; he will discharge it.’ If we took this course, we might relieve ourselves of much trouble. By faith we turn over the debt to our Husband. Believers are not in a state of widowhood but of marriage. Satan will never go to Christ — he knows that justice is satisfied and the debt book cancelled — but he comes to us for the debt so that he may perplex us. We should send him to Christ and then all lawsuits would cease. This is a believer’s triumph. When he is guilty in himself, he is worthy in Christ. When he is spotted in himself, he is pure in his Head.

When your adversary comes today or tomorrow to accuse you, to tell you of your sin and the debt you owe, say to him, “Yes, the sin is mine, but take that debt up with my Husband, Christ. He has made full and complete payment for it. You may not bother me about it again.” Fight the flaming darts of the evil one today with the shield of faith and the sword of the Word of God.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14–20

In Paul’s prayer here for the Christians in Ephesus, which is a good one to pray for any Christian that you know, Paul prays for their spiritual growth. He prays that they would be rooted and grounded in the gospel, that they would be strengthened, that they would realize more and more the love of Christ for them. But he adds an interesting phrase that struck me this morning as I was praying this passage for my family: “together with all the saints.”

Continue reading “Together With All the Saints”