Something That Just Struck Me

In Singapore you often hear the phrase "You can do anything you want as long as you don't get caught."

BUT

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

- Ecclesiastes 12: 13-14

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

- Hebrews 4: 11-13

Emphasis mine.

Meditations on Malachi (I)

A terrifying passage for those who seek to be teachers of the Word.

"And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it....True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction."

- Malachi 2: 1-3, 6-9

Private Prayer by A. W. Pink

Read it here.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:6). Eight times in the space of this verse is the pronoun used in the singular number and the second person—a thing unique in all Scripture—as though to emphasize the indispensability, importance and value of private prayer. We are to pray in the closet as well as in the church: in fact if the former be neglected, it is not at all likely that the latter will be of much avail. He that is an attendee at the prayer meetings in order to be seen of men, and is not seen alone in his closet by God, is an hypocrite. Private prayer is the test of our sincerity, the index to our spirituality, the principle means of growing in grace. Private prayer is the one thing, above all others, that Satan seeks to prevent, for he knows full well that if he can succeed at this point, the Christian will fail at every other.

Not a few are puzzling their brains over prophecy when they should be on their knees before God. “The Devil knows he is no loser, and the curious soul but a little gainer, if he can but persuade him to spend most of his precious time in pouring over the mysteries and hidden things of God. He that affects to read the Revelation of John more than his plain Epistles, or Daniel’s prophecies more than David’s Psalms, and is more busy about reconciling different Scriptures than he is about mortifying of unruly lusts, or is set more upon vain speculation than upon things that make for edification—he is not the man that is cut out for closet prayer. Such as affect sublime notions, obscure expressions, and are men of abstract conceits, are but a company of wise fools, that will never take any delight to be with God in a corner. O how holy, happy, heavenly, and humble might many men have been, had they but spent half the time in closet prayer that they have spent in searching after those things that are hard to be understood” (Thomas Brooks, Puritan).

O my reader, is there not much that we need to say to the Lord our God, the One whom we serve? How many and important are the concerns which lie between us and Him. We are constantly dependent upon Him—all our expectation is from Him. Is not all our happiness for time and eternity bound up in His favour? Have we not need to seek His approbation—to seek Him with all our hearts; to beg as for our very lives that He will lift up the light of His countenance upon us, to plead Christ’s righteousness as that through which alone we can hope to obtain God’s lovingkindness (Psa. 71:16)?! Are we not conscious that we have deeply offended the Lord our God by our numerous and grievous sins, and have contracted defilement thereby? Should we not confess our folly and seek forgiveness and cleansing by the blood of Christ? Have we not received innumerable bounties and blessings from Him—must we not acknowledge the same, and return thanks and praise? Yes, prayer is the very least we can offer unto God.

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But I really loved this part.

Scripture records much to illustrate and demonstrate the great prevalence of private prayer. O the wonders that followed secret wrestling with God, the grand mercies that have been obtained, the judgments that have been diverted, the deliverances that have been secured! When Isaac was all alone entreating with God for a good wife, he met Rebekah (Gen. 24:63, 64). While Hezekiah was weeping and praying in private, God sent the prophet Isaiah to assure him that He would add unto his days fifteen years (Isa. 38:5). When Jonah was shut up in the whale’s belly, he was delivered in answer to his supplication (2:1-10). O the power of private prayer: it has issued in the dead being raised to life—1 Kings 17:18-22, 2 Kings 4:32-35. May the Holy Spirit graciously use these considerations to stir up writer and reader.

Edit: I just realized I had posted the same thing 3 months ago. Guess it shows how forgetful I am heh.

Present Day Evangelism by A. W. Pink

Something that, in the light of my recent trip to Cambodia, I have been pondering about.

Most of the so-called evangelism of our day is a grief to genuine Christians, for they feel that it lacks any scriptural warrant, that it is dishonoring unto God, and that it is filling the churches with empty professors. They are shocked that so much frothy superficiality, fleshly excitement and worldly allurement should be associated with the holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They deplore the cheapening of the Gospel, the beguiling of unwary souls, and the carnalizing and commercializing of what is to them ineffably sacred. It requires little spiritual discernment to perceive that the evangelistic activities of Christendom during the last century have steadily deteriorated from bad to worse, yet few appear to realize the root from which this evil has sprung. It will now be our endeavor to expose the same. Its aim was wrong, and therefore its fruit faulty.

The grand design of God, from which He never has and never will swerve, is to glorify Himself—to make manifest before His creatures what an infinitely glorious Being He is. That is the great aim and end He has in all that He does and says. For that He suffered sin to enter the world. For that He willed His beloved Son to become incarnate, render perfect obedience to the divine law, suffer and die. For that He is now taking out of the world a people for Himself, a people which shall eternally show forth His praises. For that everything is ordered by His providential dealings. Unto that everything on earth is now being directed, and shall actuallly affect the same. Nothing other than that is what regulates God in all His actings: "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to whom be glory for ever Amen" (Rom. 11:36).

If the evangelist fails to make the glory of God his paramount and constant aim, he is certain to go wrong, and all his efforts will be more or less a beating of the air. When he makes an end of anything less than that, he is sure to fall into error, for he no longer gives God His proper place. Once we fix on ends of our own, we are ready to adopt means of our own. It was at this very point evangelism failed two or three generations ago, and from that point it has farther and farther departed. Evangelism made "the winning of souls" its goal, its summum bonum, and everything else was made to serve and pay tribute to the same. Though the glory of God was not actually denied. yet it was lost sight of, crowded out, and made secondary. Further, let it be remembered that God is honored in exact proportion as the preacher cleaves to His Word, and faithfully proclaims "all His counsel," and not merely those portions which appeal to him.

To say nothing here about those cheap-jack evangelists who aim no higher than rushing people into making a formal profession of faith in order that the membership of the churches may be swelled, take those who are inspired by a genuine compassion and deep concern for the perishing, who earnestly long and zealously endeavor to deliver souls from the wrath to come, yet unless they be much on their guard, they too will inevitably err. Unless they steadily view conversion in the way God does—as the way in which He is to he glorified—they will quickly begin to compromise in the means they employ. The feverish urge of modern evangelism is not how to promote the glory of the triune Jehovah, but how to multiply conversions. The whole current of evangelical activity during the past fifty years has taken that direction. Losing sight of God's end, the churches have devised means of their own.

Bent on attaining a certain desired object, the energy of the flesh has been given free reign and supposing that the object was right, evangelists have concluded that nothing could be wrong which contributed unto the securing of that end; and since their efforts appear to be eminently successful, only too many churches silently acquiesed, telling themselves "the end justifies the means." Instead of examining the plans proposed and the methods adopted by the light of Scripture, they were tacitly accepted on the ground of expediency. The evangelist was esteemed not for the soundness of his message, but by the visible "results" he secured. He was valued, not according to how his preaching honored God, but by how many souls were supposedly converted under it.

Once a man makes the conversion of sinners his prime design and all-consuming end, he is exceedingly apt to adopt a wrong course. Instead of striving to preach the Truth in all its purity, he will tone it down so as to make it more palatable to the unregenerate. Impelled by a single force, moving in one fixed direction, his object is to make conversion easy, and therefore favorite passages (like John 3:16) are dwelt upon incessantly, while others are ignored or pared away. It inevitably reacts upon his own theology, and various verses in the Word are shunned, if not repudiated. What place will he give in his thought to such declarations as: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" (Jer. 13:23); "No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him" (John 6:44); "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:14)?

Read the full article here.

Something I would Like to Know

Is who is the one who keeps writing these articles.

By implication of the examples he cited to buttress his argument, it is obvious that Paul did not understand God’s election as an arbitrary selection. After all, Isaac was chosen over Ishmael because he was justified by faith; and Jacob was chosen over Esau, again, because he pursued holiness even at material cost.

God’s election is better conceived as a response to the faith and the obedience that comes from it of human beings, than as a unilateral, enabling action on God’s part.

Thus it was not that Isaac had faith and Ishmael did not because God elected the former and not the latter; it was rather because Isaac had faith and Ishmael did not that God elected the former and not the latter. It is the same with Esau and Jacob.

And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

- Romans 9:10-13

Emphasis mine.

Why, then, do verses 11 through 13 speak of God’s election as being from eternity? This is because while God does not dictate human actions, in His divine foreknowledge He knows what every single human being will do. Knowing everything that people will do, He has elected those who will have faith and the obedience of faith and He has not elected or rejected those who will not. Thus God elected Jacob and rejected Esau even before they were born.

Middle Knowledge anyone? Is God limited by His creatures? How is it that Man has to be absolutely free, but the same cannot be said of his Creator?

Can the Ethiopian change his skin
or the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good
who are accustomed to do evil.

- Jeremiah 13:23

This is a hard truth to accept, that in my natural state I will not and a cannot do good. Such is the evil in men's hearts that Paul himself, quoting from the Old Testament, could declare "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." (Rom 3:10-12)

The proud man cannot accept this. He constantly reasons that he is not as bad as others. While he may speak of grace and faith, he holds that such faith originates from himself, from his own power. Why all this clamoring over the "free will" of Man? Does it solve anything? Does it bring greater glory to God? Far from it! While supposedly absolving God from calamities and "evil", unless you subscribe to an Open Theistic view, you still cannot run away from the problem it purports to solve. If anything, it simply gives Man an additional, though subtle, avenue for boasting. I chose Christ! I chose to respond! I made the decision to accept Him. It was MY decision that made the difference.

Is there a response of the will in salvation? Most definitely. This is not a denial of the will, but a recognition that apart from a gracious work of God in a sinner (cf. Ezekiel 36), that sinner will willfully remain lost in his sin and love it.

Remember Remember the 19th of December

To my shame.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

- 1 Corinthians 9: 24-27

You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

- 1 Thessalonian 1:5b-7

More Sermon Jams

One Gets Very Upset

When one reads things like this that people write.

God was never a bigot

Consider the claim that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a righteous yet merciful God’s solution to His wrath against mankind for their sins.

Proponents of this view say that God being perfectly righteous and holy cannot leave sin unpunished; He has to punish mankind with eternal separation from His presence and damnation in order to be consistent with His own code of righteousness.

They propose that God was somehow at pains to carry out His righteous decrees because He did not want to condemn mankind to the fate of eternal destruction.

But He could not simply leave them unpunished; let them get away ‘scot-free’ as it were. If He did that, it would be unrighteous of Him, so they say.

And so He thought up of the perfect solution that would both satisfy His righteousness and enable Him to bestow on mankind His richest mercies.

In the midst of all this, a very questionable, basic assumption has been made: namely, that the fact that God is righteous means that He has to punish every sin. It is not only His right; it is a demand that even God cannot ignore and has to ‘work around’.

This is not an issue about criminal justice, where every criminal case should be dealt with an adequate measure of justice; God’s righteousness is closer to morality, for lack of a better word. It has to do not simply with outward physical actions of murder, adultery and stealing; it has to do even with the innermost feelings, thoughts and plans of the mind.

Since that is the case, and keeping in mind that morality cannot be legislated as criminal action can, to assume that God has to punish every wrongdoing as a court punishes a criminal is no less than to assume that He is a divine bigot, which assumption is extremely suspect.

God did not plan the cross to save mankind and borrow the hands of sinful people to achieve His greater purposes; to do His ‘dirty’ work as it were.

If that were so, God could be rightly charged with ‘divine child abuse’ as a leading in the emerging church movement called it, or at least schizophrenia.

Yet while God did not plan the crucifixion of His Son, He certainly knew what would happen if He sent Jesus into the world; He could foresee the cross. And foreseeing that tragic event in eternity, God did not hold back from sending His Son, for all the people who would accept Him, even if it meant that those who rejected Him would kill Him.

God’s is the love that is willing to suffer any loss for the sake of those who love Him and even those who do not, in the sense that His revelation is given to one and all. And so God did not foreordain the cross, but He foresaw it, and He foreordained His salvation through the cross. It's the same with every incident of human suffering; while God did not foreordain that suffering, He through His foreknowledge foreordained His salvation through that suffering.

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23 When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
24 And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them,
25 who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,

"'Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed'—
27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,
30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
31And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

- Acts 4:23-31

All emphasis mine.

Don't Expect Perfect Repentance - Paul Washer

James White on Heb 4:1-11