A Short Reminder

For myself

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

- 1 Peter 4:7

*Edit*
For something just totally random, this is one reason I want to get a cat in the future.

Feeling Clueless

There have been some developments in my life that have left me feeling utterly clueless. Oh Lord be merciful to me.

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O LORD!

- Ps 25: 1-7

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

- Ps 25: 16-18

Tozer on Regeneration and the Lordship of Christ

An excellent online book of A. W. Tozer's "I call it heresy" using 1 Peter. Read it here.

So, there is a divine principle here - the fact that a man truly born again is a man who has experienced regenesis, supernatural regenesis. Just as God generated the heavens and the earth in the beginning, He generates again in the breast of the believing man!

Just as surely as God's calling the world out of nothing was a major miracle, the work of God in making a believing Christian out of a sinner is a major miracle as well.

In the light of what God is willing to do and wants to do, consider how we try to "get them in" in modern Christianity.

We get them in any way we can. Then we try to work on them - to adjust them and to reform them.

I may be misunderstood when I say this, but we even have two works of grace because the first was so apologetically meaningless that we try to have two.

I do not speak against the second work of grace; but I am pleading for the work that ought to be done in a man's heart when he first meets God. What I am asking is this: Why should we be forced to invent some second or third or fourth experience somewhere along the line to obtain what we should have received the first time we met God?

I believe in the anointing of the Holy Spirit after regeneration - but I also believe that we ought not to downgrade the new birth in order to find a place for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I have read much and studied long the lives and ministries of many of the old saints of God in past generations. I am inclined to believe that many of them were better Christians when they were just newly-regenerated than the run of the so-called "deeper life" people whom I meet today.

- A. W. Tozer

Now, to be genuinely born again is the miracle of becoming a partaker of the divine nature. It is more than just a religious expression; more than the hyphenated adjective we often hear, such as "He's a born-again man."

Some evangelicals are slow to admit it, but I know that this important matter of the new birth has fallen into cold hands, along with many other important Bible teachings. I don't have to tell you that in many Christian churches you will feel as though you are in a mortuary instead of the church of the Living God.

Christians who have been miraculously begotten again ought to be rejoicing in their deliverance from the tomb of spiritual death. Instead, we often feel as though we are in the presence of a corpse just brought in from the street. Sad indeed that the words "born again" have become words that seem to mean precious little because the emphasis of supernatural grace has dwindled away, even in some fundamentalist circles.

The new birth is still a miracle of God - it is not a matter of the mind, not just a mental thing. It is my judgment that there are many who talk about being born again on the basis of their mental assent to Christian principles. I think there are many who have received Christ mentally who have never discovered the supernatural quality of the grace of God or of the acts of God.

- A. W. Tozer

Christianity's One Drawing Card

"This is why much of the seeker friendly stuff is an abomination. Christianity has One drawing card: It is Christ. Social events or promising some sort of fellowship or friendship or this or that or any other thing is not Christianity. The fellowship and the friendliness and everything else must come forth out of Christ. It is Christ that brings you into that fellowship, not the fellowship that brings you into Christ so much. When you start your churches, when you plant your churches, when you preach your Gospel, put Christ before men and let them deal with Him. If they reject Christ, allow them to reject your fellowship. Don't bring them in gradually. Put Christ before them completely, and at first, and along with the demands. Do it lovingly, do it patiently, do it thoroughly.

When I was a young Christian, I heard that many cults practice what's called the 'divine lie', that they will tell you certain lies if necessary in order to gradually bring you in, so that you will accept the greater [teachings], so the end justifies the means. In many ways, that is what church-growth does, the end justifies the means-'Well we finally got them there to Christ'. No! Remember this, if you use carnal means to bring carnal men into your church, you'll have a carnal church and you'll have to constantly use carnal means to keep them. Start off with Christ from the very beginning. The radical claims of Christ and the radical demands of Christ."

- Paul Washer

HT: Puritan Fellowship

God and Evil

Some resources from Desiring God for future references

Does God Author Sin? (1/4)
Does God Cause Sin? (2/4)
Does God Permit Sin? (3/4)
The Author-Story Model (4/4)

I find it interesting that whenever the Bible speaks of Man's objection to God's "hand" in "bringing about" or "ordaining" evil, its defense does not consist of an attempt to placate or soothe Man's perceived sense of injustice, but rather rebuts the objection with a simple declaration of His Transcendence and of Man's ignorance and his non-right to question His motives and plans.

Perhaps there is a mystery to this "problem"

John Piper on Holy Emulation

An interesting post for all to read here

Removing of the Offence?

We have no need of being culturally sensitive as long as we're biblically accurate.

- Paul Washer on the Gospel

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

- 1 Corinthians 10:31-33

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

- 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

- Romans 1:16

Reading a book on the rise of Western Christendom, it was said of some of the 8th century missionaries, that

"[He] made his entrance there with exceeding splendor, for barbarian nations need to see a little worldly pomp and show to attract them to make them draw nigh willingly to Christianity"

Now who says the Seeker-Sensitive Movement is a new thing, as the Wise man said, "Their is nothing new under the sun."(Eccl 1:9)

A couple of months ago I was "facilitating" my church cell group's discussion on Romans 2:1-16. As we went through verse by verse we came to verse 4 which said,

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

- Romans 2:4-5

I began talking about the dangers of presuming upon the Love of God especially prevalent in the visible church today, of how God's Love has been taken for granted to such an extent that it is used as an essentially blank cheque to live a life of almost total disobedience to God. I then mentioned about God's Mercy in providing each new day an opportunity of sinners to repent, but that we cannot presume upon this mercy and say "I will repent at such and such a later time" since we can have no guarantee we will see the sun the next morning nor can we predict the return of the Lord at any moment.

Everything was going relatively fine till someone piped up, "That's all well and good, but how do we tell or convince other people?" Needless to say that put a screeching halt to my train of thought. "Well plainly I suppose", I hurriedly replied. I soon discovered that wasn't quite an adequate enough answer. The discussions came quick and fast and the fundamental point to them which I failed to see for about ten minutes was this, how do you convince lost, carnal christians and unbelievers that this is true? There was no confusion or disagreement over the truth of this passage (at least I hope there wasn't), but the question of convincing others came up. I guess my confusion was that it never occurred to me about the "need" to repackage uncomfortable truths in God's Word in order to make it more "acceptable" to those "outside".

I had the strongest urge to say that I had little concern of making hard truths more palatable to sinful men since men are convinced (or rather convicted) not by human wisdom or clever arguments, but by the Holy Spirit and our role is to simply speak forth the Truth of God plainly from Scriptures. However, in my cowardice I dared not speak up for the Sufficiency and Power of God's Word. May the Lord forgive me of this great sin.

But is not the weakness in me so much prevalent in the church as well? In the quest to be well-liked, to be thought of as a nice guy, in the desire to be as unoffensive to as many people as possible, we remove the offense of Christ and His Cross and betray the one who shed His Blood for us. We do not trust in God's power to save His Elect, but we must use every conceivable marketing gimmick and emotional manipulation technique in order to coerce as many people as we can to make "decisions for Christ", and we pat ourselves on our backs for a job well-done when all we have done is to make two-fold sons of hell.

Is it little wonder then that so many church members live lives in exactly the same manner as their unsaved neighbours do? Is it little wonder then that so many youths in churches today are hardly interested in the things of God and that we have to pander to their carnal interests in order to keep them in church? For the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12), and it will wound the conscience and soul of one who is walking contrary to Him.

I write this post not to heap further condemnation those who hold to a man-centered Christianity (for they are condemned already (see John 3:18)), but rather as a confession of my being ashamed of Christ and failing to contend earnestly for the Faith once and for all delivered to the saints. May the Lord have mercy upon me and upon those who have traded God's Truths for man-pleasing doctrines.

Calvi-minians?

An interesting post that I thought I would link here for future reading.

So, there is tension in the common man's mind. He exhibits a number of Calvinistic traits in recognizing that the human will is determinable and that there is a force that determines what happens, and yet he exhibits Arminian traits in asserting his own autonomy from determination and his attempt to control deterministic forces.