Category: Recommended

yep, I recommend this link, article or whatever it is

The Danger of Dispensationalism

~ fundyreformed ~ 4 Comments

As my faithful readers know, I am getting ready to leave for a two week vacation. Therefore, my blogging will be limited to non-existent after this post (until around June 23).

That said, I wanted to point you all to another helpful article by my friend Nathan Pitchford. He has posted an article over at Reformation Theology Blog entitled “Dispensationalism and the Eclipse of Christ (An Open Correspondence)”. In the article he defends his claim that dispensationalism is dangerous. It is a very thoughtful critique of dispensationalism and worth your time. In the comments, he links to an earlier post over on his own blog which deals with some of the main points in Scripture which dispensationalists see as demanding their system of interpretation. I’d encourage you to read that post, entitled “Land, Seed, and Blessing in the Abrahamic Covenant” as well.

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

Recently there have been some good comments here, concerning the importance of encouraging others and ourselves with the Gospel. Under my brief post about C.J. Mahaney’s sermon on Encouragement at Bethlehem (my church), Alana Asby Roberts wrote:

That thought about speaking the gospel to other Christians is interesting. After my “new” and final conversion experience at nineteen, I found that I enjoyed the gospel as food, loved to sing its truths, etc.

When we got a new pastor, he began by preaching his first Sunday morning series on “The Nature of Saving Faith” and was going deep into the truths, usually neglected, of the full gospel. He abruptly switched, I am sad to say, to a series about the Ten Commandments (with all of their possible ‘applications’). We later found out that people had been complaining about having to listen to all these “salvation messages” when they were already “saved”.

But it is the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. What could be more edifying or encouraging? He comes to us in it again and again, no matter how long we have been walking in the Way.

And under the comments for my post on “The Gospel Song” , Capt. Headknowledge said:

Mahaney’s book [The Cross Centered Life] helped me realize I can preach the Gospel to myself when I find I’m going without it in my own “worship experience.”

Sadly, Alana’s experience is all too common, and Capt. Headknowledge’s discovery isn’t. Believers do not want to have the gospel preached at them, so of course they don’t preach it to themselves! The Gospel is just for the lost (they say), and of course once they pray the sinner’s prayer, then all is good and well, right?

The ESV and other modern versions capture the essence of the Greek of 1 Cor. 1:18 better than the old KJV. It says:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (emphasis added)

Salvation is in one sense a process. The common expression “whoever believes will be saved” in most of its occurences could be understood as “the believing ones will be saved”, based on the literal sense of the Greek. Belief commences when we convert to Christ but it is to continue our whole lives [see this post which emphasizes that]. And belief is nurtured through hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17). And the phrase “word of God” most often in the NT refers to the gospel message of Christ–“the word of the cross”.

John Piper in his book When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy encourages us to preach the Gospel to ourselves!

We must not rely only on being preached to, but must become good preachers to our own soul. The gospel is the power of God to lead us joyfully to final salvation, if we preach it to ourselves. (emphasis in the original)

Piper points out that Martin Lloyd-Jones emphasized this truth in his book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures. The book is…

“an exposition of Psalm 42, especially verse 5: ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance’ (KJV).”

Piper and Lloyd-Jones point out that the psalmist is preaching the promises of the Gospel to himself. I will end with just a quote Piper gives from Lloyd-Jones and then point you to Piper’s book pgs 80-82 (and also 88-89) which is available online for free here. Lloyd-Jones, then will conclude this post for us:

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself….You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condmn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God”–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way, and then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and…what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of his countenance, who is also the health of my coutenance and my God.” [Ps. 42:11b, KJV]

[For my treatment of how the Gospel should be the focus of each and every public sermon in church, see here]

Two Ways to Live: A Great Online Evangelistic Resource

~ fundyreformed

2 Ways to Live -- Click for Online PresentationI have recently discovered a great online evangelistic resource! (HT: Justin Taylor) It comes with recommendations from D.A. Carson and Mark Dever, so it has to be good, right? [Check out Taylor’s post for details on the recommendations…]

Having read this web-based presentation, and explored some of the resources added to it, I plan to link to it from my sidebar. It is a well-designed, interactive tool which clearly presents the Gospel and points people to a life of faith not a one time decisionist experience. And it equips seekers and new believers with the resources they need. It is also available in numerous other formats along with training videos and etc.–see here for a list of products available.

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

C.J. Mahaney on Encouragement

~ fundyreformed ~ 7 Comments

C.J. Mahaney will be preaching for us at Bethlehem Baptist Church for the next three weeks. As I explained before in this post, the theme for our messages during the five months Pastor John Piper is on Sabbatical is “Toward all the Fullness of God through Jesus Christ”. This month the sub-theme is “Toward Fullness of Love for One Another”. C.J. Mahaney and the churches affiliated in his Sovereign Grace Ministries, are particularly marked by their mutual love and care for one another, and thus it is fitting that he will preach for us on this topic.

His message yesterday was very, well, encouraging! And thus, I wanted to share it with you all. He preached from this text:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Eph. 4:29 ESV)

His topic this week was encouragement and he insisted no text was as suitable to that topic than this verse. He emphasized that the message of Eph. 4:29 can literally transform your Christian life. Here are his simple three points:

“Œ1. Encouraging Words – v. 29a.

The text is first of all, a command. And it covers every word you speak. None are to be corrupting (Greek word for rotting or perishing food) words–words which corrupt others. All are to be edifying words–words which build up others. Eph. 4:25, 31, and 5:4 are all contextual examples of corrupting words. To edify others we must know them and speak about the evidences of grace in their lives to them. We should especially be telling the gospel to one another often, as nothing is more encouraging, he said.

“Œ2. Appropriate Words – v. 29b.

“As fits the occasion”. Our words must be appropriate–suitable to the situation and the individual. We need to know the person or study them to determine what kind of encouraging words best fit the occasion. 1 Thess. 5:14 lists appropriate responses to differing kinds of people, and the rest of Scripture can help us as well.

“Œ3. Purposeful Words – v. 29c.

The ultimate aim and purpose for our words should be giving grace to the hearers. Remember this command is universal and thus every interaction we have with anyone should be purposefully used to give grace through appropriate and encouraging words. Everyone needs grace, and God graciously allows us all as believers to be means of grace–channels of blessing–to one another, and even the lost.

My summary does not do justice to the sermon, but shortly you will be able to find a link to the audio sermon here. May God help us to strive to be grace-giving, encouraging speakers (and bloggers) making every attempt to use all of our daily average of 25,000 spoken words (and all our written ones) for God’s glory and the benefit of our brothers and neighbors.

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Together for the Gospel: A Call for Unity and Doctrinal Purity

~ fundyreformed ~ 7 Comments

April 26-28, 2006 may well be remembered as an historic occasion. This was the first Together for the Gospel conference. It was hosted by Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Albert Mohler, and C.J. Mahaney and included guest speakers R.C. Sproul, John Piper, and John MacArthur. But the conference was not about great men, it was about a greater message–the Gospel! The conference, attended by over 2800 people (mostly pastors) had a rare concern for both unity and doctrinal purity. It attempted to address the problems of denominational partisanship on the one hand and doctrinal paltriness on the other. Together for the Gospel was just that, a call for our unity to be in the most important and absolutely defining truths which are fundamental to the Gospel. True unity only exists around the true Gospel, and the true Gospel demands a true unity.

I am thrilled at how this conference exalts the Gospel as the true source of unity. As a former fundamentalist, I was inculcated with a knee-jerk reaction against virtually any call for unity. Why? Unity is most often trumpeted to the detriment of doctrinal purity. This does not have to be, but often is. My friend Nathan Pitchford has written an excellent article detailing how unity and doctrinal purity are not in opposition with one another at all, I recommend it highly.

In my own opinion the fundamentalist solution to the problem of rampant ecumenism has its own glaring problems. In almost every sector of fundamentalism, to one degree or another, unity is sought in each and every doctrinal (and often practical) position. The result is minor doctrines and personal interpretations and preferences have been exalted to a level greater than the doctrinal truths essential to the Gospel itself! Rather than prizing the actual unity we have as fellow believer-partakers in our Divine Lord Jesus Christ’s glorious provision for our sins as an altogether adequate basis for a mutual fellowship and unity which welcomes each other in spite of our differing positions on comparatively minor points, the minor points we disagree define us as we esteem them of greater importance than our commonality in the Gospel. Our own applications of separation, views on baptism, and beliefs about the finer points of eschatology and ecclesiology and other doctrines become stumblingblocks to the real unity of the faith the One True Gospel calls us to, and the world is robbed of a clear witness to the Oneness of Christ and the Father, and of Christ and His Church, and ultimately God is denied a unified voice that glorifies His name (Eph. 4:3,13, Jn. 17:20-21, Rom. 15:5-7).

I did not have the joy of attending the conference, but I have been blessed by others descriptions of it in the blogworld. Let me share the blessing by sharing some of the pertinent links below.

CONFERENCE LINKS:

I hope and pray this conference has a lasting and tremendous impact for the cause of Christ and His Church.

Pictures taken from Together For the Gospel’s Picture Pool.