Are we Christians?

"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion!" Amos 6:1

What do we say to . . .

our self-indulgence,
our spiritual sloth,
our love of ease,
our avoidance of hardship,
our luxury,
our pampering of the body,
our costly feasts,
our silken couches,
our brilliant furniture,
our gay attire,
our jeweled fingers,
our idle mirth,
our voluptuous music,
our jovial tables, loaded with every variety of rich viands?

Are we Christians? Or are we worldlings?

Where is the self-denial of the New Testament days?

Where is the separation from a self-pleasing luxurious world? Where is the cross, the true badge of discipleship, to be seen--except in useless religious ornaments for the body, or worse than useless decorations for the sanctuary?

"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion!" Is not this the description of multitudes who name the name of Christ? They may not be "living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry." But even where these are absent, there is 'high living'--luxury of the table or the wardrobe--in conformity to 'this present evil world.'

"At ease in Zion!" Yes! there is the shrinking . . .

from hard service; from 'spending and being spent;' from toil and burden-bearing and conflict; from self-sacrifice and noble service;for the Master's sake.

There is conformity to the world, instead of conformity to Christ!
There is a laying down, instead of a taking up of the cross.
Or there is a lining of the cross with velvet, lest it should gall our shoulders as we carry it!
Or there is an adorning of the cross, that it may suite the taste and the manners of our refined and intellectual age.

Anything but the bare, rugged and simple cross!

We think that we can make the strait gate wider, and the narrow way broader, so as to be able to walk more comfortably to the heavenly kingdom. We try to prove that 'modern enlightenment' has so refined 'the world and its pleasures', that we may safely drink the poisoned cup, and give ourselves up to the inebriation of the Siren song.

"At ease in Zion!" Even when the walls of our city are besieged, and the citadel is being stormed!

Instead of grasping our weapons, we lie down upon our couches!
Instead of the armor, we put on the silken robe!
We are cowards, when we should be brave!
We are faint-hearted, when we should be bold!
We are lukewarm, when we should be fervent!
We are cold, when we should be full of zeal!

We compromise and shuffle and make excuses, when we should lift up our voice like a trumpet! We pare down truth, or palliate error, or extenuate sin--in order to placate the world, or suit the spirit of the age, or 'unify' the Church.

Learn self-denying Christianity. Not the form or name, but the living thing. Let us renounce the lazy, luxurious, self-pleasing, fashionable religion of the present day!

A self-indulgent religion has nothing in common with the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; or with that cross of ours which He has commanded us to take up and carry after Him--renouncing ease and denying self.

Our time,
our abilities,
our money,
our strength--
are all to be laid upon the altar.

"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion!" Amos 6:1

(Horatius Bonar, "Self-Denial Christianity")
(19 December, 1808 – 31 May, 1889) He was a Scottish churchman and poet.

It's Not About You!

This is how I am justified and forgiven.

Not by the hopeless endeavor to win and fight my way to the favor of God and the Celestial City--but by looking to Jesus only, and by leaning on Him absolutely.
"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Your cross I cling!"

This is how I find assurance.

I am tossed with tempest, overcast with doubt, haunted with fear--while I scrutinize my own frames and feelings. But when I fix my gaze steadfastly on Him, so all-sufficient, so perfect--the morning awakens and the shadows decay; behold, the winter is past, and the flowers appear! For my own comfort, I would see Him as a glorious Sun filling my sky.

This is how I grow holy.

While indeed I am bidden work out my own salvation with fear and trembling, it must not be as if everything depended on me. It must rather be by a perpetual faith in Him, and a perpetual prayer to Him, who works in me to will and to do according to His good purpose! The battle is not mine, but His. He sows the seed, and He ripens the harvest. He lays the foundation, and He puts the top-stone in its fitting place.

This is how I shall be glorified in the end

Self will have vanished in the better country, and Christ will be ALL! I shall follow the Lamb wherever He goes. I shall find my safety, my peace, my victory--in keeping very close to Him. He will be familiar, and yet He will be new every morning. And I shall discover in Him a subject of study, and wonder, and worship, and love--which is illimitable and unfathomable!

"Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith!" Hebrews 12:2

(Alexander Smellie, "The Hour of Silence" 1899)

Wisdom and the "IF" "Then" statements

Just thinking out loud....

It seems to me that as soon as someone starts mentioning, what I call the "If" statements in the Bible, you will soon hear someone else say, "It's all of grace".   No argument there; however, God makes it clear throughout His Word that we only grow in "grace" and knowledge when and "IF" we are actively communing with God through His Word and Prayer.  Sometimes I think we confuse the "monergistic grace" of God which saves completely and totally with "growing in grace and knowledge" as we walk through this life on earth as a born-again believer.  One must spend time in communion with God after He has brought them from spiritual darkness and death into the light and given them spiritual life, in order to experience and even recognize wisdom from God.

God is not a genie in a lamp that we rub when we need Him to do something for us, i.e. give us wisdom.    Clearly, if we want wisdom from God, there are more things involved then just asking for it.  Let's look at just this one passage in Proverbs Chapter 2:

IF you receive my words

IF you treasure up my commandments

IF you make your ear attentive

IF you incline your heart

IF you call out

IF you seek after it

IF you search for it

THEN you will understand

THEN you will find knowledge

The Value of Wisdom

1 My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
8 guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
10 for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
11 discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
12 delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
13 who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
14 who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
15 men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.

MYSTERIOUS VISITS

(O' Lord, thank you for Spurgeon and for all the other godly men who have long sense left this earth.  Without their teaching and encouragement, I would, more often then not, be left all alone to wonder if I were actually crazy and had silly notions about you)

I do remember well when God first visited me; and assuredly it was the night of nature, of ignorance, of sin. His visit had the same effect upon me that it had upon Saul of Tarsus when the Lord spake to him out of heaven. He brought me down from the high horse, and caused me to fall to the ground; by the brightness of the light of His Spirit He made me grope in conscious blindness; and in the brokenness of my heart I cried, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" I felt that I had been rebelling against the Lord, kicking against the pricks, and doing evil even as I could; and my soul was filled with anguish at the discovery. Very searching was the glance of the eye of Jesus, for it revealed my sin, and caused me to go out and weep bitterly. As when the Lord visited Adam, and called him to stand naked before Him, so was I stripped of all my righteousness before the face of the Most High. Yet the visit ended not there; for as the Lord God clothed our first parents in coats of skins, so did He cover me with the righteousness of the great sacrifice, and He gave me songs in the night It was night, but the visit was no dream: in fact, I there and then ceased to dream, and began to deal with the reality of things.

Believe me, there are such things as personal visits from Jesus to His people. He has not left us utterly. Though He be not seen with the bodily eye by bush or brook, nor on the mount, nor by the sea, yet doth He come and go, observed only by the spirit, felt only by the heart. Still he standeth behind our wall, He showeth Himself through the lattices.

Do you ask me to describe these manifestations of the Lord? It were hard to tell you in words: you must know them for yourselves. If you had never tasted sweetness, no man living could give you an idea of honey. Yet if the honey be there, you can "taste and see." To a man born blind, sight must be a thing past imagination; and to one who has never known the Lord, His visits are quite as much beyond conception.

For our Lord to visit us is something more than for us to have the assurance of our salvation, though that is very delightful, and none of us should rest satisfied unless we possess it. To know that Jesus loves me, is one thing; but to be visited by Him in love, is more.

Nor is it simply a close contemplation of Christ; for we can picture Him as exceedingly fair and majestic, and yet not have Him consciously near us. Delightful and instructive as it is to behold the likeness of Christ by meditation, yet the enjoyment of His actual presence is something more. I may wear my friend's portrait about my person, and yet may not be able to say, "Thou hast visited me."

At such a time a flood of great joy will fill our minds. We shall half wish that the morning may never break again, for fear its light should banish the superior light of Christ's presence. We shall wish that we could glide away with our Beloved to the place where He feedeth among the lilies. We long to hear the voices of the white-robed armies, that we may follow their glorious Leader whithersoever He goeth. I am persuaded that there is no great actual distance between earth and heaven: the distance lies in our dull minds. When the Beloved visits us in the night, He makes our chambers to be the vestibule of His palace-halls. Earth rises to heaven when heaven comes down to earth.
C.H. Spurgeon
(exceprts from - MYSTERIOUS VISITS)
AN ADDRESS TO A LITTLE COMPANY AT THE
COMMUNION TABLE AT MENTONE.
"Thou hast visited me in the night."—Psalm 18:3.

He Knows Our Sorrows

"I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you."
John 14:18

  

Blessed Jesus! How Your presence
  sanctifies trial,

takes loneliness from the chamber of sickness,
and the sting from the chamber of death!

     

Bright and Morning Star! precious at all times,
You are never so precious as in "the dark and
cloudy day!"

   

The bitterness of sorrow is well worth enduring,
to have Your promised consolations. How well
qualified, Man of Sorrows, to be my Comforter!
How well fitted to dry my tears, You who shed
so many Yourself! What are . . .

    
my tears,
my sorrows,
my crosses,
my losses,

     
compared with Yours, who shed first Your tears,
and then Your blood for me!

   

Mine are all deserved, and infinitely more than
deserved. How different, O Spotless Lamb of God,
are those pangs which rent Your guiltless bosom!

How sweet those comforts You have promised to the
comfortless, when I think of them as flowing from . . .

an Almighty Fellow Sufferer;
a Brother born for adversity;
the Friend that sticks closer than any brother;

one who can say, with all the refined sympathies of a
holy exalted human nature, "I know your sorrows!"

My soul! calm your griefs! There is not a sorrow
you can experience, but Jesus, in the treasury of
grace, has an exact corresponding solace: "In the
multitude of the sorrows I have in my heart, Your
comforts delight my soul!"

Excerpt from (John MacDuff, "The Faithful Promiser")

Modesty

Let us imagine an entire church where there was not a single woman, young or old, who was dressed in the least bit provocatively.  Could a Christian man attend this church on Sunday and not be caused to stumble?  Perhaps.  However, what happens as soon as he leaves the building when he is bombarded with passerby's, billboards, co-workers, etc?  Yes, women who wear the name of Christ should be concerned to reflect their Lord in an honorable way; both inside a church building and everyday they walk out of their home.  However, unless the local church decides to close their doors to everyone accept members who are mature enough in the Lord to dress modestly, men will need to look at themselves in regard to their struggles.

"A Sanctified Eye"

"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind..." "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

A man does not need to forever walk through life with blinders on in order to gain victory over his unholy lusts. In fact, as his mind and heart are gradually transformed by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, he finds that he can walk through this world with his eyes wide open and the things that were once stumbling blocks will have little to no power over him.

In fact, immoral things that once enticed him to sin, he will find as, not only unattractive to him, but actually nauseating. No "accountability group" can accomplish this; no amount of self discipline or behavior modification can accomplish this. Unless there is an inward transforming going on--a renewing of the mind; these "techniques" used to conquer lust will fail miserably every time. Until a man actually hates what used to entice him to sin, he will be a prisoner of it as long as he walks on this earth. Until he sees these things through a "sanctified eye" he will love them in all their ugliness.

Apply this to the so called "addiction to pornography" by professing Christians. A man whose mind is being transformed and renewed by God, will eventually feel nothing but sorrow and compassion for the women who are giving themselves to this industry. He would think of them as daughters to be rescued, not "things" to be used for his own sexual gratification. He would feel a righteous anger towards this entire industry. He would see it for the emptiness, ugliness, and animal like depravity that it truly is. He would see it as Christ sees it. Yes, this is possible and it is the only way that a man ever gains victory. As he is transformed by the Spirit through the Word, he will want to cover a woman's nakedness out of love for her, not "undress her with his eyes" and desire to defile her. Let us listen to Jonathan Edwards:

"When a holy and amiable action is suggested to the thoughts of a holy soul, that soul, if in the lively exercise of its spiritual taste, at once sees a beauty in it, and so inclines to it, and closes with it. On the contrary, if an unworthy, unholy action be suggested to it, its sanctified eye sees no beauty in it, and is not pleased with it; its sanctified taste relishes no sweetness in it, but on the contrary, it is nauseous to it."

"And as to a gracious leading of the Spirit, it consists in two things: partly in instructing a person in his duty by the Spirit, and partly in powerfully inducing him to comply with that instruction.

But so far as the gracious leading of the Spirit lies in instruction, it consists in a person's being guided by a spiritual and distinguishing taste of that which has in it true moral beauty. I have shown that spiritual knowledge primarily consists in a taste or relish of the amiableness and beauty of that which is truly good and holy: this holy relish is a thing that discerns and distinguishes between good and evil, between holy and unholy, without being at the trouble of a train of reasoning.

As he who has a true relish of external beauty, knows what is beautiful by looking upon it; he stands in no need of a train of reasoning about the proportion of the features, in order to determine whether that which he sees be a beautiful countenance or no; he needs nothing, but only the glance of his eye. He who has a rectified musical ear, knows whether the sound he hears be true harmony; he does not need first to be at the trouble of the reasonings of a mathematician about the proportion of the notes. He that has a rectified palate knows what is good food, as soon as he tastes it, without the reasoning of a physician about it.

There is a holy beauty and sweetness in words and actions, as well as a natural beauty in countenances and sounds, and sweetness in food: Job 12:11 , "Doth not the ear try words, and the mouth taste his meat?"

When a holy and amiable action is suggested to the thoughts of a holy soul, that soul, if in the lively exercise of its spiritual taste, at once sees a beauty in it, and so inclines to it, and closes with it. On the contrary, if an unworthy, unholy action be suggested to it, its sanctified eye sees no beauty in it, and is not pleased with it; its sanctified taste relishes no sweetness in it, but on the contrary, it is nauseous to it. Yea, its holy taste and appetite leads it to think of that which is truly lovely, and naturally suggests it; as a healthy taste and appetite naturally suggests the idea of its proper object.

Thus a holy person is led by the Spirit, as he is instructed and led by his holy taste and disposition of heart; whereby, in the lively exercise of grace, he easily distinguishes good and evil, and knows at once what is a suitable amiable behaviour towards God, and towards man, in this case and the other, and Judges what is right, as it were spontaneously, and of himself, without a particular deduction, by any other arguments than the beauty that is seen, and goodness that is tasted.

Thus Christ blames the Pharisees, that they "did not, even of their own selves, judge what was right," without needing miracles to prove it, Luke 12:57 . The apostle seems plainly to have respect to this way of judging of spiritual beauty, in Rom. 12:2: "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God."

Jonathan Edwards

Why Do You Strive?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the "why" in the striving.  You hear many messages about "killing sin", "walking in obedience to the Lord", and "desiring to be conformed to the image of Christ".  Many times the motivation for living the life of faith seems to miss the mark.  I do not think that our motivation should be to gain personal assurance of our own salvation.  I do not think that we should be compelled by the desire for rewards in heaven.  Those things will be a result of our striving, no doubt, but, should they really be the reason?  When we make them our primary motivation, we begin to live a man-centered Christianity.  In other words, we strive for self gain.

Thomas Watson once said, "

God's glory is more worth than heaven, and more worth than the salvation of all men's souls.

Do you agree with that?  Is God's glory more important than your own salvation?  Let us think about that for awhile.  I believe that until we understand that very core truth, we will strive for the wrong reasons.  If we view our salvation from a self-centered perspective, we miss God's purpose in it.  Nothing brings dishonor to the name of Christ as does someone who works and strives to gain assurance or to gain rewards.  In fact, that is the twin sister of a works-righteousness salvation.  In other words, the message is, "Now that you are saved, work to prove it to yourself and to others".  That is quite different than, "Now that your are saved, put His Honor and Glory above your own life, i.e., as more important than your own salvation!

As I was pondering these things, I came across J.C. Ryle's "Holiness, Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots".

You will find in his introduction very important statements.  How we live--why we strive after godliness, will either adorn the beauty of Christ and bring God Glory or it will be (as Ryle states) despised by keen-sighted and shrewd men of the world, as an unreal and hollow thing, and bring religion into contempt.

In his introduction he states:

I have had a deep conviction for many years, that practical holiness and entire self-consecration to God are not sufficiently attended to by modern Christians in this country. Politics, or controversy, or party-spirit, or worldliness — have eaten out the heart of vital piety in too many of us. The subject of personal godliness has fallen sadly into the background. The standard of Christian living has become painfully low in many quarters. The immense importance of "adorning the doctrine of God our Savior" (Titus 2:10), and making it lovely and beautiful by our daily habits and tempers — has been far too much overlooked.

Worldly people sometimes complain with reason that "religious" people, so-called, are not so amiable and unselfish and good-natured, as others who make no profession of religion. Yet sanctification, in its place and proportion, is quite as important as justification. Sound Protestant and Evangelical doctrine is useless — if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse then useless; it does positive harm. It is despised by keen-sighted and shrewd men of the world, as an unreal and hollow thing, and brings religion into contempt.

As you strive to bring God glory in and through your life on earth, J.C. Ryle offers the following counsel:

A holy man will strive to be like our Lord Jesus Christ. He will not only live the life of faith in Him, and draw from Him all his daily peace and strength--but he will also labor to be conformed to His image (Romans 8:29). It will be his aim . . .

to bear with and forgive others--even as Christ forgave us;
to be unselfish--even as Christ pleased not Himself;
to walk in love--even as Christ loved us;
to be lowly-minded and humble--even as Christ humbled Himself.


A holy man will remember . . .
that Christ would continually deny Himself in order to minister to others;
that He was meek and patient under undeserved insults;
that He thought more of godly poor men, than of kings;
that He was full of love and compassion to sinners;
that He was bold and uncompromising in denouncing sin;
that He sought not the praise of men, when He might have had it;
that He went about doing good;
that He was separate from worldly people;
that He continued instant in prayer;
that He would not let even His nearest relations stand in His way, when God's work was to be done.


All these things, a holy man will try to remember. By them, he will endeavor to shape his course in life.


He will lay to heart the saying of John: "He who says he abides in Christ, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked" (1 John 2:6); and the saying of Peter, that "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps" (1 Peter 2:21).


Happy is he who has learned to make Christ his "all," both for salvation and example!

A Prayer for the New Year

Oh LORD,

A long life does not profit me except the days are spent

     In Your presence,

     In Your service,

     For Your glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, and aids every hour, that I may not be one moment apart from You.

May I rely on Your Spirit to

     Supply every thought,

     Speak every word,

     Direct every step,

     Prosper every work,

     Build up every ounce of faith.

Give me a desire to

     Show forth Your praise,

     Testify of Your love and

     Advance Your kingdom.

I launch my ship on the unknown waters of this year, with

     You, O Father, as my harbor,

     You, O Son, at my helm,

     You, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with

     My lamp burning,

     My ear open to Your calls,

     My heart full of love,

     My soul free.

Give me

     Your grace to sanctify me,

     Your comforts to cheer,

     Your wisdom to teach,

     Your right hand to guide,

     Your counsel to instruct,

     Your law to judge,

     Your presence to stabilize.

May Your fear be my awe,

Your triumphs my joy.

The original version of this prayer, along with many others, can be found in The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennet.

Morality & Regeneration (Part Two)

Morality is a neat cover for foul venom,
but it does not alter the fact that the heart is vile,
and the man himself is under damnation.


Men will be damned with good works
as well as without them,
if they make them their confidence.


You may go to hell as well dressed
in the garnishings of morality
as in the rags of immorality.


It is still the old nature- wash it, and cleanse it,
and bind it, and curb it, and bridle it-
it is still the old fallen nature,
and cannot understand spiritual things.
C.H. Spurgeon

To the eye of one who sees not as God sees, there is much that is comparatively illustrious in the character and conduct of such men. But while we cheerfully make these concessions, we may not substitute a mere visible morality, however exemplary, however vivid and useful, for true holiness. It is easy to conceive all the virtues of an unexceptional moral deportment concentrated in men who are at heart strangers to the spirit of Jesus Christ. A person of the character to which we refer may, for example, be a professed disbeliever in the truths and doctrines of the Gospel. There are not lacking even infidels who rarely disregard the laws of good neighborhood and civil society. David Hume would have blushed at the imputation of moral dishonesty and yet could boldly deny his God and Savior.

Seneca and Socrates inculcated by their writings and sustained by their conduct a morality which, though not faultless, did honor to the pagan world, but they were pagans still. There are also men in these Christian lands who from the peculiarity of their condition, from the restraints of education and habit, from high notions of honor from a keen sense of propriety and gentlemanly deportment, or from motives of mere ambition and personal aggrandizement, would seldom be detected in an immoral action; who, at the same time, disclaim every principle of the Holy Scriptures.

The morality of which we speak, with all its excellencies, is subjected to a lamentable defect. It regards only a part of the divine law. A merely moral man may be very scrupulous of duties he owes to his fellow men, while the infinitely important duties he owes to God are kept entirely out of sight. Of loving and serving God, he knows nothing. Whatever he does or whatever he leaves undone, he does nothing for God. He is honest in his dealings with all except God, he robs none but God, he is thankless and faithless to none but God, he feels contemptuously, and speaks reproachfully of none but God. A just perception of the relations he sustains to God constitutes no part of his principles, and the duties which result from those relations constitute no part of his piety. He may not only disbelieve the Scriptures, but may never read them; may not only disregard the divine authority, but every form of divine worship, and live and die as though he had no concern with God and God had not concern with him.

The character of the young man in the Gospel presents a painful and affecting view of the deficiencies of external morality (see Mat. 19:16-22). He was not dishonest, nor untrue; he was not impure nor malignant; and not a few of the divine commands he had externally observed. No, he says, “All these have I kept.” Nor was his a mere sporadic goodness, but steady and uniform. He had performed these services “from his youth up.” Nor was this all. He professed a willingness to become acquainted with his whole duty. “What lack I yet?” And yet when brought to the test, this poor youth saw that, with all his boasted morality, he could not deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Christ. I said that mere morality regarded only a part of the divine law, but to speak more correctly, it disregards the whole of it.

The sum and soul of obedience to the divine law consists in love to God. But the people whom we describe, though they many have some knowledge of God and may confess his worthiness to be loved, love almost everything else more than He. They have no supreme delight and complacency in His excellence; it is no source of congratulation to those who He is what He is, and that He sways the empire of the universe; and if they ever fix their thoughts upon God, their contemplation of His holiness, justice, and sovereignty are rather the sources of suspicion, alarm, and uneasiness, than of tranquility, confidence, and holy pleasure. Men of this description, therefore, are wholly destitute of the radical and essential principle of conformity to the law of God. However they may have the appearance of rectitude, they fail in all the essential parts of holy obedience. Nor is there in such a character any conformity to the requisitions of the Gospel. Repentance, faith, humility, submission, hope, and joy are acts of a mind that delights in God.

There is a wide distinction between moral virtues and Christian graces. Christian graces spring from holy love and have their origin in holy motives. They regard chiefly the glory of God and the interests of His Kingdom and then govern the relationships of men with their fellow men as God has required. Moral virtues spring from supreme selfishness. They have their origin in motives that are never recognized by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have no regard for the glory of God and the interests of His Kingdom and go just so far as a well-regulated self-interest leads the way and there they stop.

Morality & Regeneration

Let us talk about unregenerate, sinful man.

Before we are “born-again”, we all live lives of varying degrees of outward and inward morality. Yes?

We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Some are strong-willed and disciplined and some are weak willed and undisciplined. Some, when they put their mind to a task stick to it and win the battle. Some decide to quite smoking, and with shear determination, quit smoking. One may try the patch and gum and nothing seems to work for them. Some struggle with drugs and alcohol abuse and some do not. Not every lost sinner is a drug addict. Some see what drugs do to people and decide to never indulge. Some are raised by an alcoholic parent and decide to never touch the stuff. Some have too much respect for their own bodies and for others to be used or use others as toys to satisfy their own sexual desires, and some are sexually promiscuous; for various reasons. Some decide to stick to a diet and are successful, some simply cannot seem to deny themselves pleasure for more than three days; some find coarse and vulgar language distasteful and crude and some cuss like a sailor; and the list goes on. I think you get the point. Unregenerate man has varying levels of natural strength based on the strength of their will, self-determination and self-discipline and live varying degrees of “sinful” or moral lives.

Why is this so important to understand? It is important to understand because as Christians we seem to have a very short sighted, and perhaps even erroneous, understanding of what occurs when a person is “saved”. We get confused about the outward life of a person and the inward change that has taken place.

A person who (because of their own nature and strength) lived a life outwardly less sinful (was loving and giving; didn’t practice habitual sinful activities--was “morally” a very strong and disciplined person) will appear as a “strong” Christian after they are reconciled to God through Christ. A person who was weaker “morally” will struggle more with the old nature.

The work of regeneration is perfect as to kind, and perfect as to parts, extending to all his powers and faculties—but is not yet perfect as to degree—as an infant has all the parts of a man, though it is not arrived at the full stature of the perfect man. And thus it is with souls that are new-born, which made a worthy divine say, "every regenerate man is two men"—that is, he has a new nature in him, which is wholly for God, and an old nature still in part remaining, which is wholly for sin. And these two natures residing in the same soul and in all of its faculties, which are but in part sanctified—the corrupt nature, the flesh, lusts against the spirit, or holy nature in his heart—and the spirit against the flesh; and these being contrary, the one to the other, souls that are born again cannot do perfectly the things that they desire, because of sin that dwells in them.

There is then no true holiness in mere morality. Much as there is in such a character that is highly esteemed among men, there is nothing that is right in the sight of God. The principle and motive of such a character is at a great distance from all that God requires and loves. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The moral quality of actions lies in the disposition of heart with which they are performed. A man may be very moral, but if the disposition of heart with which the acts of morality are performed be not such as God requires and approves, though he may believe he is going to Heaven, he is in the broad way to hell. Mere morality never aims at the heart and would never touch it if it should. It may lop off the luxuriances of human depravity, but it never strikes at the root. It may not sink into the baseness of degeneracy, but it never soars to the purity of holiness. It is a fascinating picture, but it is cold and spiritless as the canvas on which it is delineated. It is like the twinkling glow worm which borrows all its light from the putrescent and earthy substances of which it is composed, but sustains no relation to the luminary which imparts light and heat to the universe. However fair this exterior, and however accordant with the expectations of the world, it falls far short of what a man must be to become either holy or happy.

Reader: If our old nature was more disciplined and strong willed prior to being saved we will have less of a struggle mortifying the flesh since we have been doing that most of our life (not in a “saving” way, in a temporal way). It is our disposition that has been changed, not our old nature.

Let us not judge our brothers and sisters based on outward morality. Let us have compassion on one another and understand that sanctification is a process and there is, and will always be, (while the old nature still resides) an inner battle. Ask a man about Christ before you ask a man about his “walk with Christ” and you will find out a lot more about the disposition of this man’s heart and soul.

To be continued……

What would things look like If Satan Actually took over a city

I first heard the quote below from Donald Grey Barnhouse, in Michael Horton's 2008 book, Christless Christianity.  I heard it again (with delight) today from the pulpit at Immanuel Baptist Church in Sarcramento, California.  What a powerful and arresting illustration to bring a much needed truth home to our minds and hearts.
 

What would things look like if Satan actually took over a city? The first frames in our imaginative slide show probably depict mayhem on a massive scale: Widespread violence, deviant sexualities, pornography in every vending machine, churches closed down and worshipers dragged off to City Hall. Over a half-century ago, Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church, gave his CBS radio audience a different picture of what it would look like if Satan took control of a town in America. He said that all of the bars and pool halls would be closed, pornography banished, pristine streets and sidewalks would be occupied by tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The kids would answer “Yes, sir,” “No, ma’am,” and the churches would be full on Sunday … where Christ is not preached.

Think long and hard on that, Christian. Above all else, Satan desires to keep the Gospel of Jesus Christ from being made known. And he does so often by substituting other things for Him. Like an illusory veil of moralism that hides our need for the Savior. And he does so even within the church.

Below is a review of Horton's Book written by Martin Downes who is the minister of Christ Church Deeside (North Wales, UK).


There are certain books that, even within a few pages, give you the distinct impression that they must be read, and re-read, with great care. Michael Horton's latest volume Christless Christianity : The Alternative Gospel of the American Church is that kind of book.


Horton's analysis of what is wrong with so much that passes for Christianity in the United States, and which of course is being exported across the globe, is clear sighted, substantiated by the evidence, and devastating in its implications. Old errors are alive and well and the good news of God's grace in Jesus Christ is being supplanted by them.


Some twelve and a half years ago R. C. Sproul wrote:
    "We need an Augustine or a Luther to speak to us anew lest the light of God's grace be not only overshadowed but be obliterated in our time."


It is precisely with that same concern, and in that same vein, that Horton has directed his aim at a "Christless Christianity" that draws us away from God's astonishing sovereign grace. This appalling trade-off leaves us with a Christ that we may still call a Savior, but "we really save ourselves by knowing and following the steps of the new birth and victorious living" (p. 54).


This "Christianity-lite" is no more than the redux version of the old errors of pelagianism and gnosticism, a heady brew of works-righteousness and subjectivism, but all tailored to the needs of those reared on 21st century aspirations and expectations.


"Christless Christianity" is anti-gospel error with a smile. It has enough truth, or perhaps words associated with the truth, to maintain plausibility, and enough error to pander to the cravings of our sinful hearts and minds. Our ability to obey is massaged, our spirituality is pampered, but our sins, true guilt, total helplessness, our need for Jesus Christ and his substitutionary death are neglected, ignored, and replaced.


Horton writes:
So much of what I am calling "Christless Christianity" is not profound enough to constitute heresy. Like the easy-listening Muzak that plays ubiquitously in the background in other shopping venues, the message of American Christianity has simply become trivial, sentimental, affirming, and irrelevant...I think our doctrine has been forgotten, assumed, ignored, and even misshaped and distorted by the habits and rituals of daily life in a narcissistic culture. (p. 21)


Instead of a gospel that is grace all the way down, "Christless Christianity" is "moralistic, therapeutic deism" (p. 40). Even though it may try to distance itself from the old legalism of the fundamentalists, it is in fact a gentler form of legalism with an irrepressible confidence in human ability. It is law, and not gospel. This whole approach is typified by the dazzling self-help moralism of Joel Osteen:


"Osteen seems to think that we are basically good people and God has a very easy way for us to save ourselves--not from his judgment, but from our lack of success in life--with his help. "God is keeping a record of every good deed you've ever done," he says--as if this is good news. "In your time of need, because of your generosity, God will move heaven and earth to make sure you are taken care of." (p. 70)


Indeed the pandering to works is astonishing:
Make no mistake about it, behind all of the smiles there is a thorough-going religion of works-righteousness: "God's plan for each of our lives is that we continually rise to new levels. But how high we go in life, and how much of God's favour and blessing we experience, will be directly related to how well we follow his directions." (p. 86)


But it is not only the Joel Osteens and Robert Schullers of this world who confuse law and gospel, the same is true in the writings of emergent guru Brian McLaren (p. 110-4). The good news for Osteen is how to become a better you.  For McLaren it is following a new way.  But for both the work of Christ outside of us, apart from us, and crucially for us, is being jettisoned. Horton rightly says "Jesus and the community, his work and ours, blend into one saving event" (p. 114).


If the Reformation gave us a clearer grasp of the biblical offices of prophet, priest and king, "Christless Christianity" by way of contrast, majors on Jesus the prophet and teacher, is muted on Christ the king, and has no real need for the high priestly suffering of the Son of God.


One could be forgiven for thinking that Christless Christianity is merely a withering critique of all that is wrong with the pragmatic, pelagian, individualistic, market and emergent driven American church landscape. However, at every turn Horton points us, to borrow the title from another of his books, to a better way. As well as having a polemical edge this book is spiritually enriching. It is as we are reminded of our sinful depravity and helplessness, as we are humbled, that we are led again and again in the book to the sheer grace of God in Jesus Christ, to his atoning blood, glorious resurrection, and total sufficiency. Indeed Horton directs us to preaching Christ, to the churchly means of grace, as God's provision for burned out souls.


Michael Horton is an astute observer of the evangelical church scene and its relationship to culture.  The difference between his assessments of the data, and that of a George Barna or a Willow Creek, is ultimately rooted in a different theology and a different ecclesiology.  Claiming to be orthodox on paper counts for little if your approach to church life and the gospel effectively undermines the truth.  The sections of the book that deal with the doctrine of the church ought to leave us with some serious thinking about what the church is before God, and what the church must do in the world.


"Christless Christianity," leaves no orthodox doctrine untouched.  God is reduced to our fellow sufferer, our sympathizer.  Sin has become bad feelings and poor self image.  Christ has become our example and our teacher.  Eternity has become time, the world to come eclipsed by the here and now.  Scripture becomes a self-help manual.  The true biblical world-view has been inverted.  God's holiness no longer stands in such stark contrast with our sin, and therefore his justice and our eternal condemnation no longer remain our most pressing issue.  By this route, atonement and justification need not be denied because, frankly, they are now irrelevant.


Let me end this review with a striking passage that I think encapsulates the reason why evangelical church life is so desperately faddish, frantically pursuing a boom and bust cycle of spiritual experience:

Similarly today, the preaching of the law in all of its gripping judgment and the preaching of the gospel in all of its surprising sweetness merge into a confused message of gentle exhortation to a more fulfilling life. Consequently, we know neither how to mourn nor how to throw a real party. The bad news no longer stands in such sharp contrast with the good news; we become content with so-so news that eventually fails to bring genuine conviction or genuine comfort but keeps us on the treadmill of anxiety, craving the next revival, technique, or movement to lift our spirits and catapult us to heavenly glory. (p. 63)

Piper on Wimpy Women

Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. That’s my assumption that I bring to this evening. Wimpy theology simply does not give a woman a God that is big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and good enough to handle the realities of life in away that magnifies the infinite worth of Jesus Christ.


Wimpy theology is plagued by woman-centeredness and man-centeredness. Wimpy theology doesn’t have the granite foundation of God’s sovereignty or the solid steel structure of a great God-centered purpose for all things.

My assumption is that wimpy theology makes wimpy women. And I don’t like wimpy women. I didn’t marry a wimpy woman. And with Noël, I am trying to raise my daughter Talitha, who turns 13 on Saturday, not to be a wimpy woman.

Marie Durant

The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon. The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant, a French Christian in the 17th century who was arrested for being a Protestant and told she could be released if she said one phrase: “I abjure.” Instead, wrote on the wall of her cell, “Resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she died, doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion, [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116–117).

Gladys and Esther Staines

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines who in 1999, after serving with her husband Graham in India for three decades learned that he and their two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6), had been set on fire and burned alive by the very people they had served for 34 years, said, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.”

The opposite of a wimpy woman is her 13-year-old daughter Esther (rightly named!) who said, when asked how she felt about her father’s murder, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”

Krista and Vicki

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Krista and Vicki who between them have had over 65 surgeries because of so-called birth defects, Apert Syndrome and Hypertelorism, and who testify today through huge challenges, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well”; and this: “Even though my life has been difficult, I know that God loves me and created me just the way I am. He has taught me to persevere and to trust Him more than anything.”

Joni Eareckson Tada

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada who has spent the last 41 years in a wheel chair, and prays, “Oh, thank you, thank you for this wheel chair! By tasting hell in this life, I’ve been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy” (Christianity Today, January, 2004, 50).

Suzie

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Suzie who lost her husband four years ago at age 59, found breast cancer three months later, then lost her mom and writes, “Now I see that I have been crying for the wrong kind of help. I now see, that my worst suffering is my sin—my sin of self-centeredness and self-pity. . . . I know that with His grace, his lovingkindess, and his merciful help, my thoughts can be reformed and my life conformed to be more like His Son.”

Read the entire address here

Tell me what you think of Jesus...

Our estimate of Christ is the best gauge of our spiritual condition; as the thermometer rises in proportion to the increased warmth of the air, so does our estimate of Jesus rise as our spiritual life increases in vigor and fervency. Tell me what you think of Jesus and I will tell you what to think of yourself. Christ is, yea, more than all when we are thoroughly sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. When pride of self fills up the soul, there is little room for Jesus; but when Jesus is fully loved, self is subdued, and sin driven out of the throne.


If we think little of the Lord Jesus we have very great cause to account ourselves spiritually blind, and naked, and poor, and miserable. The rebel despises his lawful sovereign, but the favored courtier is enthusiastic in his praise. Christ crucified is the revealer of many hearts, the touchstone by which the pure gold and the counterfeit metal are discerned; his very name is as a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap; false professors cannot endure it, but true believers triumph therein. We are growing in grace when we grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let everything else be gone, and let Christ fill up the entire space of our soul, then, and only then, are we rising out of the vanity of the flesh into the real life of God.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Song Among The Lilies," delivered August 30, 1874

Are You Standing Ready?

It is of the greatest service to us all to be reminded that our life is but a vapor, which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away. Through forgetfulness of this worldlings live at ease, and Christians walk carelessly. Unless we watch for the Lord’s coming, worldliness soon eats into our spirit as doth a canker. If thou hast this world’s riches, believer, remember that this is not thy rest, and set not too great a store by its comforts. If, on the other hand, thou dwellest in straitness, and art burdened with poverty, be not too much depressed thereby, for these light afflictions are but for a moment, and are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Look upon the things that are as though they were not. Remember you are a part of a great procession which is always moving by; others come and go before your own eyes, you see them, and they disappear, and you yourself are moving onward to another and more real world.... Our duty is to trim our lamps against the time when the Bridegroom comes; we are called upon to stand always ready, waiting for the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or else for the summons which shall tell us that the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, that the body must return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Stephen's Death," delivered May 24, 1874.

There are times when solitude is better than company...

Psalm 119:15
I will meditate on your precepts.

There are times when solitude is better than company, and silence is wiser than speech. We would be better Christians if we were alone more often, waiting on God and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for service in His kingdom. We ought to ponder the things of God, because that is how we get the real nutriment out of them.

Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: In order to have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser's feet must come down joyfully on the bunches or else the juice will not flow; and the grapes must be properly tread or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth if we desire the wine of consolation from them.

Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process that really supplies the muscle and the nerve and the sinew and the bone is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening for a while to this and then to that and then to the other part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning all require inward digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies mainly in meditating upon it.

Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make only slow advances in the Christian life? Because they neglect their closets and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they want the corn, but they will not go out into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs on the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it.

Deliver us, O Lord, from such folly, and may this be our resolve this morning: "I will meditate on your precepts."

Great Morning Devotion - Posted by Jon Bloom over at Desiring God:

Ask the Apostle Paul to explain love (agápē) and the first thing out of his mouth: “Love is patient” (1 Corinthians 13:4).

Forget the rest of his list for a moment; my work is already cut out for me.

I’m prone to impatience. I can’t honestly blame this merely on my temperament or my family of origin. Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Impatience is a fruit of selfishness. And selfish is simply an ugly, accurate description of my fallen, depraved nature, which wants all of creation to serve me. Selfishness is the real archenemy of love:

Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved. It will even suffer and die for the beloved in order that its joy might be full in the life the purity of the beloved (John Piper, Desiring God, 206-207).

Love is patient because patience is a dying to selfishness. It is the belief that in this dying we will find greater joy in the joy of the ones we are seeking to love: God and neighbors. It’s one of the ways we fulfill the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).

Nine Verses to Consider
The Bible says we are to be:

•“Patien[tly] bearing with one another in love,” (Ephesians 4:2)
•“Patient with them all [the idle, fainthearted, and weak]” (1 Thessalonians 5:14)
•“Reprov[ing], rebuk[ing], and exhort[ing], with complete patience” (2 Timothy 4:2)
•“Patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12)
•“Patiently endur[ing]…sufferings” (2 Corinthians 1:6)
•“Patiently enduring evil” (2 Timothy 2:24)
•“Imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12)
•“Still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7)
•“Patient…until the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7)
There are really no loopholes here. We are to be patient with people, pain, evil, and God.

What It Is and Isn't
Patience requires both faith and humility. It requires that whenever things go differently than we envision or wish, we believe that God is working all things for good (Romans 8:28), that he will complete all the good things he begins (Philippians 1:6), and that we can trust him because our understanding is incomplete and inaccurate at best (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Patience is not permissive; it doesn’t think sin or injustice is okay. Neither is patience passive; it doesn’t do nothing. It is just a relentless trust in all that we do, and all that we cannot do, that God will deal with everything in perfect justice (Deuteronomy 32:4). And he will accomplish all his purposes (Isaiah 46:10). Therefore we do not need to get angry.

Ultimately, love is patient because God is patient: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8). And that’s why we are to be “quick to hear, slow to speak, [and] slow to anger” (James 1:19).

You and I and Our Opportunity
So, today you and I will have an opportunity, likely numerous ones, to lay down our lives for the sake of Christ. It will come when we are tempted to be impatient. That moment will be our invitation to love.

And if we fail, we will not fear condemnation (Romans 8:1). The cross has already paid for that sin. We will just get up, repent of our failure to God and to others, rejoice in the grace of Jesus, and press on to grow in the grace of patient love.

Always Look to Christ!

I find that the holiest of men in Scripture had their imperfections, with the sole exception of our Master, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, in whom was no sin. His garments were whiter than any fuller could make them, but all his servants had their spots. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all, but we, with all the brightness his grace has given us, are poor dim lamps at best. I make no exception even of those who claim perfection, for I have no more faith in their perfection than in the Pope’s infallibility. There is enough of the earthen vessel left about the best of the Lord’s servants to show that they are earthen, and that the excellency of the heavenly treasure of divine grace which is put within them may be clearly seen to be of God and not of them.

C.H. Spurgeon

Do you live constantly acknowledging the reality of the presence of Christ?

When Christ is with us we are safe, for what wolf can rend a sheep when it is close to the shepherd’s hand? When we are away from Jesus, we are not only in peril, but are already despoiled; to lose fellowship with Jesus is loss enough in itself, even if no further calamity occur. Ships without a pilot, cities without watchmen, babes without a nurse, are we without Jesus. We cannot do without him, the less we attempt it the better. Samson without his locks is the sad type of a believer out of fellowship.

How dare we go forth to business on any one day without the presence of the Lord? As well might the warrior go to battle without shield and buckler. Should we not daily pray, “If thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence”? How can we go to our beds till he has kissed us with the kisses of his mouth? May not even the dreams and visions of the night prove our bane if our souls be not committed to his keeping? For my part, I love to murmur to myself, as I place my head on my pillow, those charming lines —

“Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood,
I lay me down to rest,
As in th’ embraces of my God,
Or on my Savior’s breast.”

C. H. Spurgeon

"...certain secret, mystic, and divine impulses..."

I fear that the title of this post may twist some people's faces up; which brings me great sorrow. So many have been indoctrinated into limiting the supernatural reality of the existence, presence, attributes and operations of God among His people.  I am so thankful to our Lord that he has gifted the church with teachers and preachers throughout the church's history to bring encouragement to those still alive in the body.   This is where I go to graze when my soul is in need of green pastures"

To mere professors Christ Jesus is never anything but a myth. They believe there was such a man, but he is only an historical personage to them. To true believers in Christ, however, he is a real person, now existing, and now dwelling in the hearts of his people. And oh! I bear my witness that if there be anything which has ever been certified to my consciousness it is the existence of Jesus, the man, the Son of God.


Oh friends, have we not, when our soul has been in a rapture, thrust our finger into the prints of the nails? Have we not been so drawn away from the outward world, that in spiritual communings we could say, He was to us as our brother that sucked the breasts of our mother, and when we found him without we did embrace him, and we would not let him go? His left hand has been under our head, and his right hand has embraced us. I know this will sound like a legend even to men who profess to be Christ's followers, but I question the reality of your piety if Christ be not one for whom you live, and in whom you dwell; with whom you walk, and in whom you hope soon to sleep that you may wake up in his likeness. A real Christ and a real God—no man has real religion till he knows these. So again the Holy Spirit, who is, with the Father and the Son, the one God of Israel; the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, indivisibly One and yet everlastingly Three—the Holy Spirit is also real, for




"He, in our hearts of sin and woe
Makes living streams of grace arise,
Which into boundless glory flow."


Tell us there is no Spirit? Why, about this we can speak positively. A fool may say that there is no magnetic influence, and that no electric streams can flow along the wires, but they who have once been touched by that mysterious power know it; and the Holy Spirit's influence on men is quite as much within the sphere of our recognition, if we have ever felt it, as is the influence of galvanism or magnetism. Those who have once felt the spiritual life know when it is flowing in; when its strength is withdrawn, and when it returns anew. They know that at times they can do all things; their heaviest trial is a joy, and their weightiest burden a delight; and that at other times they can do nothing, being bowed down to the very dust with weakness. They know that at times they enjoy peace with God through Jesus Christ, and that at other times they are disturbed in spirit. They have discovered, too, that these changes do not depend upon the weather, nor upon circumstances, nor upon any relation of one thought to another, but upon certain secret, mystic, and divine impulses which come forth from the Spirit of God, which make a man more than man, for he is filled with Deity from head to foot, and whose withdrawal makes him feel himself less than man, for he is filled with sin and drenched with iniquity, till he loatheth his own being. Tell us there is no Holy Spirit! We have seen his goings in the sanctuary, but as we shall have to mention these by-and-bye, we pass on, and only now affirm that the Father, Son, and Spirit, are to true Christians no fiction, no dream, no fancy, but as real and as true as persons whom we can see, things which we can handle, or viands which we can taste.

C.H. Spurgeon

Horatius Bonar put his finger on it!

There seems to be a prevailing trend among many of the young Christians whom I fellowship with.  They seem to be almost fixated on discussing how well or how poorly they did during the week in their Christian walk.  It has been a burden to my soul to hear them discuss this, almost at the exclusion of anything else.  (I have written about this in an early post.)

My attempts to provide a morsel of comfort and counsel, seem to go no further than their foreheads.  Each week it is the same thing.  Basically, the problem, as I see it, is an extreme focus on self.  I knew this was not a good thing but could not quite put my finger on the root, or cause, of this phenomenon among our young people.   They seem, and sound, as if they have no peace!

It may be as simple as "behavioral mimicking"   What I mean by that is, they may be mimicking what they hear from the older more seemingly learned young people and so, because they respect them, they believe that this way of thinking and talking is "more spiritual".  Of course, that is a problem, if indeed that is the cause.

Then, as Michael was reading excerpts to me from Horatius Bonar's "The Everlasting Righteousness", Bonar articulated the problem and affirmed my concerns.  Below is a portion of the chapter that addresses this problem.  They all seem to fall into the errors outlined in #3 and #4 below.  Perhaps the only "counseling" some of them need is to take their eyes off of themselves and turn their gaze to Jesus.  If they are going to really grow in the faith, they need to start asking the right questions, and then having the truth of the gospel as an answer, instead of their peers.  As Bonar says in this excerpt, one must ask themselves:

Is my soul at rest? If so, whence has the rest come? If not, why is it not at rest? Is unrest a necessity, after Christ has said, "I will give you rest"?


Am I satisfied with the gospel? Is my heart content with Christ Himself, and my conscience with what He has done? If not content, why? What aileth me at Him and His work? Would I have something added to that work, or something taken from it? Is it not, at this moment, exactly the thing for me; exactly the thing which contains all the peace and rest I need? and am I not, at this moment, exactly the person whom it suits; to whom, without any change or delay, it offers all its fullness?

Below is the entire excerpt, which I am posting with the hope that some of the young people might read it and thus, benefit from it:

By nature we have no peace; "there is no peace to the wicked." Man craves peace; longs for it. God has made it for us; presents it to us.

Many are the causes of dispeace; sin is the root of all. Where unpardoned sin is, there cannot be peace. Many are the subordinate causes. An empty soul; disappointment; wounded affection; worldly losses; bereavement; vexations, cares, weariness of spirit; broken hopes; deceitful friendships; our own blunders and failures; the misconduct or unkindnesses of others. These produce dispeace; these are the winds that ruffle the surface of life's sea.

Many are the efforts and appliances to obtain peace. Man's whole life is filled up with these. His daily cry is, "Give me peace!" He tries to get it in such ways as the following:

1. By forgetting God. It is the remembrance of God that troubles a sinner. He could get over many of his disquietudes, if he could keep God at a distance. He tries to thrust Him out of his thoughts, his heart, his mind, his conscience. Though he could succeed, what would it avail? He would only bring himself more surely into the number of those who shall be "turned into hell"; for they are they who "forget God." What will forgetting God do for a soul? What will it avail to thrust Him out of our thoughts?

2. By following the world. The heart must be filled by some one or in some way. Man betakes himself to the world, as that which is most congenial, and most likely to satisfy his cravings. Pleasure, gaiety, business, folly, change, gold, friends,-these man tries; but in vain. Peace comes not.

3. By working hard and denying self. The dispeace of a troubled conscience comes from the thought of evil deeds done, or good deeds left undone. This dispeace he tries to remove by trying to shake off the evil that is in him, and to introduce the good that is not in him. But the hard labor is fruitless. It does not pacify the conscience or assure him of pardon, without which there can be no peace.


4. By being very religious. He does not know that true religion is the fruit or result of peace found, not the way to it, or the price paid for it. He may be on his knees from morn to night, and may make long fastings and vigils, or prosecute his devotional performances till body and soul are worn out; but all will not do. Peace is as far off as ever.

He wants peace; but he takes his own way of getting it, not God's. He thinks there is a resting-place; but he overlooks the free love that said, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

The peace of the cross, what is it? What does it do for us?  What is it? It is peace of conscience; peace with God; peace with the law of God; peace with the holiness of God. It is reconciliation, friendship, fellowship; and all this in a way which prevents the dread or possibility of future variance, or distance, or condemnation. For it is not simply peace, but the peace of the cross; peace extracted from the cross; peace founded on and derived from what the cross reveals, and what the cross has done. It is peace whose basis is forgiveness, "no condemnation." It is peace which comes from our knowledge of the peace-making work of Calvary. It is true peace; sure peace; present peace; righteous peace; divine peace; heavenly peace; the peace of God; the peace of Christ; complete peace, pervading the whole being.

What does it do for us?

1. It calms our storms. In us tempests rage perpetually. The storms of the unforgiven spirit are the most fearful of all: the whirlwind, earthquake, rushing blast, lightning, raging waves,-these are the emblems of a human heart. But peace comes, and all is still. The great Peacemaker comes, and there is a great calm. The holy pardon which He bestows is the messenger of rest.

2. It removes our burdens. A sinner's heaviest burdens must ever be dread of God, want of conscious reconciliation with Him, uncertainty as to the eternal future. Peace with God is the end of all these. A sight of the cross relieves us of our burdens, and connection with the Sin-bearer assures us that these shall never be laid on us again.

3. It breaks our bonds. Sharp and heavy are the chains of sin; not merely because it is a disease preying upon our spiritual nature, but because it is guilt which must be answered for before a righteous Judge. Unpardoned guilt is both prison and fetters. Forgiveness brings with it peace; and with peace every chain is broken: our prison doors are opened; we walk forth into liberty.

4. It strengthens us for warfare. Without peace we cannot fight. Our hands hang down, and our weapons fall from them. Our courage is gone. So long as God is our enemy, or so long as we know not whether God is our friend, we are disabled men. We are without heart, and without hope. But when reconciliation comes, and God becomes our assured friend, then we are strong; well nerved for battle; fearless in the conflict; full of hope and heart. "If God be for us, who can be against us?

5. It cheers us in trial. The peace of God within is our chiefest consolation when sorrows crowd in upon us. Lighted up with this true lamp, we are not greatly moved because of the darkness without. Peace with God is our anchor in the storm; our strong tower in adverse times; the soother of our hearts, and the dryer up of our tears. We learn to call affliction light, and to find that it worketh for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Is my soul at rest? If so, whence has the rest come? If not, why is it not at rest? Is unrest a necessity, after Christ has said, "I will give you rest?

Am I satisfied with the gospel? Is my heart content with Christ Himself, and my conscience with what He has done? If not content, why? What aileth me at Him and His work? Would I have something added to that work, or something taken from it? Is it not, at this moment, exactly the thing for me; exactly the thing which contains all the peace and rest I need? and am I not, at this moment, exactly the person whom it suits; to whom, without any change or delay, it offers all its fullness?

The propitiation and the righteousness finished on the cross, and there exhibited as well as presented to me freely, are such as entirely meet my case: offering me all that which is fitted to remove dispeace and unrest from heart and conscience; revealing as they do the free love of God to the sinner, and providing for the removal of every hindrance in the way of that love flowing down; proclaiming aloud the rent veil, and the open way, and the gracious welcome, and the plenteous provision, and the everlasting life.

Peace does not save us, yet it is the portion of a saved soul.

Assurance does not save us; and they have erred who have spoken of assurance as indispensable to salvation. For we are not saved by believing in our own salvation, nor by believing anything whatsoever about ourselves. We are saved by what we believe about the Son of God and His righteousness. The gospel believed saves; not the believing in our own faith.