BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Soft and effeminate Christianity hides behind lofty and ethereal theology...

This is an excerpt from Horatius Bonar's God's Way of Holiness. Much here that is helpful to men and women of God. Read carefully, to the very end. It's packed with meat. Paragraphing is mine. (TB, w/thanks to Tim C. by way of Matt B.)

* * *

"The man who knows that he is risen with Christ, and has set his affection on things above, will be a just, trusty, ingenuous, unselfish, truthful man. He will “add to [his] faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5-7). He will seek not to be “barren nor unfruitful.” “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report” (Phil 4:8), these he will think upon and do.

"For there is some danger of falling into a soft and effeminate Christianity, under the plea of a lofty and ethereal theology...

Two questions vs. ten cannons vs. what... (part 2 of 2)

Several months ago, in part 1 of this post, I wrote about the difficulty of calling men to follow Christ in an age which has reduced discipleship to constant repetition of the mantra, "I believe in Jesus." Though Scripture warns, "Without holiness, no man shall see God," modern evangelism leaves out the call to holiness or obedience.

In part 1 I mentioned the problems of using Evangelism Explosion's famous "Two Questions," to call men and women to Christ. Modern evangelism stresses belief and ignores obedience, leaving us without response when those we're seeking to evangelize claim to know Jesus as Saviour, yet show no fruit of the faith they claim.

In part 2 my intention was to introduce a system I grew acquainted with years ago when it went under the name, "The Ten Cannons of the Law." 

Taught by Ray Comfort, a man I respect, the Ten Cannons approach seeks to rehabilitate the Law of God as a primary tool in evangelism. I believe Ray Comfort's "Ten Cannons of the Law" now goes by the name "The Way of the Master."

The problem with the Ten Cannons/Way of the Master approach is that though it begins with the Law and thus is far superior to the average Evangelical call to salvation, it doesn't end differently. 

My nephew Joseph Bayly, pastor of ClearNote Church Indianapolis posted a comment earlier today about "The Way of the Master" that says everything I was going to say about the "Ten Cannons" and more. And so I happily place it here as the long-delayed conclusion to my initial post.

(DB)

_______________________________

First things first. The "Way of the Master" material is good in many, many ways. Most significantly, it correctly identifies the need to proclaim the law of God before offering people grace and salvation. Grace is graceless, and salvation is meaningless unless we see our guilt before the Holy God. And the 10 Commandments is ground zero for declaring God's law. This is something that has been lacking in many evangelistic "techniques" for some time. The 180 movie is also an excellent resource for ideas of how to interact with people and show them the horror of abortion. It gets at many truths, makes people think about difficult questions, and I'm quite thankful that it is available. I could spend more time talking about the good things, but these clearly demonstrate that I am serious when I say it is good in many ways. 

Food is for the stomach...

As a principle, I never, ever read Huffington Post. But something about foolish consistency…

Here's an article pointing out that the habit of taking vitamins inculcated in David and me by Dad and continued by me for a few years, recently, is worthless. Note that I didn't say "dangerous," but "worthless."

Not addressing observable rashes and visible vomiting and painful skin maladies and lactose intolerance, or my own throat-swelling from eating Mangos (their skins have the same oil as Poison Ivy), but when people get their meaning in life from not eating sugar and veganism and supplements and so-called "natural" food, I always think of Scripture's declaration:

Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. (1 Corinthians 6:13)

Discipline for holiness is where our focus and work and money should be--not losing weight to be sexy or buff, or buying thousand dollar mills so our grain can be more wholesome. I'm waiting for someone to propose we all weave our own toilet paper. (TB)

 

A sermon from a dying man to dying men...

Is Holiness Possible Today (With a Warning from Esau)

Along with a number of other dear brothers (Ron Scates, Gary LeTourneau, Jim DeCamp, Terry Schlossberg, Ben and John Sheldon), my friend Rev. Marty Radcliffe continues to languish in the heretical PC(USA). Pray for him. Marty was a godly encouragment to me in the work of the ministry back in the early eighties when we both were ordained and served within the PC(USA)'s John Knox Presbytery up in Wisconsin.

Marty just commented under the post, "Death of an eighteen-year-old brother...," that he'd recently listened again to my Dad's final sermon given from the pulpit of College Church in Wheaton a few weeks before he died. After Dad's death, I had three-hundred cassettes of this sermon duplicated and sent them out to many friends.

This is the sort of preaching almost completely absent from the PCA and other conservative Reformed circles today. And it's tragic. Out of fear of being labelled a "pietist" by godless hypocrites who persecute those pursuing the sanctification without which no man will see God...

The death of an eighteen-year-old brother...

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. (Lamentations 3:25-32)

(NOTE: Since posting this a few hours ago, I've made a couple corrections and added some text at the end.) Back in 1964, my brother, Joe, went off to Swarthmore on a (rare) full ride National Merit Scholarship. He was a philosophy major, ran on the Cross Country team, and loved the Lord. He planned to go on for a Ph.D. and serve in foreign missions.

Meanwhile Dad...

Sin, temptation, and the Campuscrusadification of the Church...

This post has been retitled, "Sin, temptation, and the Campuscrusadification of the Church...." Read it and you'll begin to understand why no one cares if you're holy--no one but Almighty God.

(TB)

Sin, temptation, and the Campuscrusadification of the Church...

When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?”

And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26).

Again, here's a response to a question asked by "Jay" under the post, "Must a gay man go straight?" I thought it best to put the response here on the main page as a post.

Jay asked: "I do know other men and women who struggle with homosexual temptation, who not only reject copulation but also gay identity and culture, but who do not have any heterosexual desires. Are they saved?"

Sorry for the lack of response. The post took all my time for the blog yesterday so I'm playing catch-up.

First, I'm doubtful these men and women you know who struggle with homosexual temptation actually reject gay identity and culture as clearly and with the finality you indicate. If we live in a culture that hates sexuality as God made it; if we pursue androgyny in the pulpit in the way we preach (see the category of Baylyblog titled "gelded discourse"), in our appearance--hair length and style, for instance; if our  men are physically vain (whether macho buff or femmie bling and piercings or a sweet combination of both); it's likely no Christian tempted by homosexuality has really turned away from androgyny to Biblical manhood and womanhood. Made an effort, sure, but today within the Church there are precious few heterosexuals who pursue Biblical manhood or womanhood.

So being "straight" in our sexuality as the Bible presents manhood and womanhood is exceedingly rare, today. Men are narcissists and refuse to man up, taking responsibility for themselves or others...

"Saving people: THAT'S what the church is all about!"...

Imagine a fortress, absolutely impregnable, provisioned for an eternity. There comes a new commandant. He conceives that it might be a good idea to build bridges over the moats—so as to be able to attack the besiegers.

Charming! He transforms the fortress into a country retreat, and naturally the enemy takes it. So it is with Christianity. They changed the method—and naturally the world conquered. [1]

My wife ran into a friend in the supermarket whose husband works for a large parachurch organization. Their small talk went from this to that, eventually turning to the friend listing for my wife a number of churches she and her husband had attended the past few years. Our friend had nice things to say about each church. Then she brought her list to a conclusion with the chipper exclamation, "Saving people—that’s what church is all about, isn’t it!”

This drew my mind back almost thirty years to an observation my Dad used to make about evangelicals’ single-minded focus on evangelism: “Evangelicals are only interested in getting people saved. And after he's saved, as far as they're concerned he might as well die and go to Heaven because it’s all over.”

Is there a purpose to our lives after we’ve placed our faith in Jesus? Does God have any larger plan for us...

Quick now, no peeking...

Revelation 19:7-8 starts,

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is _________.

Now the test: how does the verse end? What is the "fine linen, bright and clean" of the bride of Christ by which she has made herself ready for the Lamb? And now that you've looked it up, is the answer what you expected?

(DB)

 

Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord...

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God... (Hebrews 12:14,15 KJV)

By way of Wes White, here's a post from someone who's been thought to be a standard-bearer for confessionalism's ridicule of the pursuit of holiness in which he states clearly that there is no necessary conflict between doctrine and piety. But rather that, historically, those who have written and affirmed the Reformed confessions have been at the forefront of the pursuit of holiness. Thank you, Michael Horton, for this post which may do some much-needed work among us.

 

Get them off your computer. NOW!

Video games are the bane of manhood; and increasingly, of womanhood, also. More, they destroy Godliness. Followers of Jesus Christ should not be wasting hours on these things, let alone days, weeks, months, years, and decades. And yes, I know several men who are close to wasting a decade of their lives, now.

But it may not even be video games. Three years ago, now, the game I needed to delete from my laptop was Backgammon...

Cool Reformia...

(David) Under the Labor Party that governed prior to the last general election, Great Britain finally achieved what had escaped her for hundreds of years of empire. She became cool. Though frequently stuffy, stubborn, vindictive, generous, arrogant, wise and pigheaded, she had never come close to the detached affect of cool. Cool was Gallic. Anglo Saxons did blood sweat and tears. And then Tony Blair defeated John Major, ushering in Cool Britannia and ending Rule Britannia not with tears or a funeral but with a decade-long party.

So too, the Reformed movement in America appears to be dying in a spasm of cool. Being young and Reformed in America has become the one thing it never was, hip. And the central pillar of the Cool Reformed movement is a celebration of grace as the all-in-one Swiss Army knife solution to the onerous problem of God's moral law. Cool Reformed is comprised of legions of young (and not-so-young) self-proclaimed ex-fundamentalists who claim to have found deliverance from the demons of legalism in a newfound Reformed understanding of the Gospel of grace. 

Luther: "almost all omit... to preach in His name repentance..."

(Tim) In his post below, David is right. We shepherds often sin by healing the sin of the souls under our watch-care superficially. We commend the grace of God without condemning sin. We drone on about forgiveness and never mention repentance. Luther saw the same thing among the shepherds of his day:

In regard to doctrine we observe especially this defect that, while some preach about the faith by which we are to be justified, it is still not clearly enough explained how one shall attain to this faith, and almost all omit one aspect of the Christian faith without which no one can understand what faith is or means. For Christ says in the last chapter of Luke 24:47 that we are to preach in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins.

Many now talk only about the forgiveness of sins and say little or nothing about repentance.

"The lust he thought was dead..."

(Tim) Over at ClearNote Blog, Jake Mentzel posted an introduction and has been putting up paraphrased excerpts from John Owen's Mortification (The Killing) of Sin in Believers. If you refuse to forgive others, look longingly at men's or women's bodies, wish you had your neighbor's Kubota, are prayerless, comfort yourself with ice cream, numb yourself with alcohol, bale hay during worship, and are bitter against God, this book's for you...

"Digesting sin without bitterness..."

(Tim) Over at ClearNote Blog, Jake Mentzel posted an introduction and has been putting up paraphrased excerpts from John Owen's Mortification (The Killing) of Sin in Believers. If you refuse to forgive others, look longingly at men's or women's bodies, wish you had your neighbor's Kubota, are prayerless, comfort yourself with ice cream, numb yourself with alcohol, bale hay during worship, and are bitter against God, this book's for you...

Legal and illegal drugs...

(Tim, w/thanks to Yoseph) Psychotropic drugs have a place, I'm sure, but this short article (very unfortunately, where Arianna and her buddies huff and puff against God) demonstrates there are druggies on both sides of the legality fence. Whether the addict is getting his drugs from dealers, pain clinics, or psychiatrists, the cost to society and the drug-addled zombies and their families is terrible. Of course, like most sins of our culture, this one too is an epidemic among confessing Christians.

One in every forty-five adults of working age is getting money from taxpayers for a mental illness disability. And the number of children receiving federal payments for mental illness jumped from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007.

But maybe this explosion of legal drug use allows men to function as more productive members of society?

Apparently not...

Every vile or idle word...

(Tim: This from Elder Jeff Moore of Church of the Good Shepherd)

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. - Ephesians 4:29

...and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 
- Ephesians 5:4

Increasingly, I'm aware of, not only my own failure to honor Christ in my speech in all spheres of my life, but also everyone else’s failure in light of God’s holy commands. Since God was opening my eyes to the incredible importance of words, tongue, and how we so often dishonor him, I have tried to be more keenly aware of all speech everywhere and in every area of life.

This is even more apparent and important in the digital age of computers, internet, texting, tweeting, cell phones,  and whatever the new flavor of the month is for communicating with the world. Information bombards us at breathtaking pace and from many sources. Rarely does any of it honor God.

We can get so immersed in the cultural norms for the way we communicate that we lose discernment on how it is we accomplish obeying, by God’s glorious grace, God's commands to us in the epistle to the Ephesian church. Note this letter was given to the church, God's people.

We cannot confine this passage to simply the spoken word in personal conversation when we can hide behind our façade of respectability, if we like. Nor can we be so confined in our application of these commands and also the oft-cited passages in James 3:1-12 regarding the danger of the tongue. No, this also includes the cell phone, the telephone at work and home, and our online words clattering on endlessly...

The sin of believers...

Then he began to curse and swear, “I do not know the man!” And immediately a rooster crowed. (Matthew 26:74)

(Tim) In one of his more recent comments, Darryl wrote that I'd called his "profession" into question. This is not true. I've nowhere questioned Darryl Hart's faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

So how could he think so?

My guess is Darryl can't understand how I could accuse a man of discouraging the holiness and sanctification of believers without considering that man doing the discouraging an unbeliever, himself. In other words, such an accusation is so serious that the one making it must be holding another far more serious accusation in abeyance.

Not so.

Reading through the account of Passion Week from the Gospel of Matthew last night (as is our congregation's habit on Palm Sunday evening), we were confronted by the Disciples' utter failure as Jesus went to His death...

A word to church planters about the danger of adultery...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla who gave me a heads-up and has done several good posts on the subject) Here's the setup. Mrs. Frank James (who prefers to be known as Carolyn Custis James), was teaching a group of pastors how better to utilize women in positions of authority when one pastor asked her, "If we work with women, won't we be tempted?"

Mrs. James wasn't pleased with the question or what followed. She writes:

What followed (the question was) a laundry list of precautions to safeguard oneself from moral hazards when working or dealing with women. Women find this kind of thinking offensive, and rightly so. This low view of women conflicts with the Bible's high redemptive view of us.

So now, a word for church planters and new pastors. When I took my first call, Dad forwarded an article about a youth pastor who had given a young woman a ride home after youth group. Later, he was sued by the young woman's parents for some sort of sexually predatory behavior--which he denied. At the top of the article, Dad had scrawled, "This is a warning. Never give a woman a ride in your car, alone. Never counsel a woman, alone. Have a woman present or keep your door open and stay within sight of your secretary."

When we built our church-house a couple years ago, we put lights (windows) in every door as protection for everyone, everywhere...

Seminaries' true curriculum...

Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made horns of iron for himself and said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘With these you will gore the Arameans until they are consumed.’” All the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, “Go up to Ramoth-gilead and prosper, for the LORD will give it into the hand of the king.”

Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, “Behold now, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. Please let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably.”

But Micaiah said, “As the LORD lives, what the LORD says to me, that I shall speak.” (1 Kings 22:11-14)

(Tim) The purpose of seminaries today is to place their students in good jobs as pastors of good churches. But we live in an evil day when search committees want to hire men who will make a good show of honoring God and His Word while bending the Word at those places where the church's leaders are hard-hearted.

Say, for instance, the church has lots of women who have left submission to their husbands and service to their homes and children for submission to their bosses and service to their businesses and customers. Such a church will seek to hire a pastor who knows better than to preach on the Holy Spirit's sex-specific commands of Titus 2:3-5, that the older women are to teach the younger women to "workers at home" who are "subject to their own husbands." No one on the Search Committee will actually say it, of course--it's too important to be said.

So, search committee's doing what search committee's do, the secretary contacts Harvard Divinity School and asks for resumes. And when, depending on the church's building and location and terms of call offered, ten or two-hundred and fifty resumes arrive, the process of evaluating how precisely this or that man will posture himself between faithfulness to God and sensitivity to his congregation's hard hearts begins...

The cosmic killjoy...

(Tim: this from Pastor Dave Curell on the ClearNote Fellowship Blog)

...There’s always that one guy who not only attacks the morality of the film, but also claims an absolute authoritative understanding of what is morally acceptable. He doesn't simply imply that, in his view, something is right or wrong, but he claims his view is the authoritative view. And by this piece of chutzpah, he becomes the worst of the killjoys—the dogmatic one. Why? Because his conviction calls into question every piece of entertainment we consume. Nothing's sacred or safe any longer. Seriously, if he casts down Avatar, won’t Star Wars soon fall along with it?

Christians hate such killjoys. They're cosmic bummers.

Why doesn't someone throw them down a well. (read the post)

Did Calvin "add a little moral strength" to Geneva?

(Tim: this from Pastor Andrew Dionne) John Frame’s review of Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity ends with a summary of arguments from Horton’s work that cannot be justified by arguments from Scripture or classic Protestant confessions. Number seven from Frame’s list is this: “Preaching of the gospel must never use biblical characters as moral or spiritual examples. Nor must it address practical ethical issues in the Christian life.”

In Christless Christianity, we read the following helping us understand why Dr. Horton...

Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oskar Schindler, and Leah Winandy...

(Tim, w/thanks to Alan) Now that it's safe, movies are made and books written about the men and women who feared God and took action to save the lives of Jews during the Third Reich. Corrie ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are the best-known in evangelical circles. Oskar Schindler was the inspiration behind Steven Spielberg's Academy Awards Best Picture, Schindler's List. Too, there's the relentless (and unjustified) attack on Pope Pius XII for his purported failure to defend the Jews.

But back when Hitler was still in power and the Jews were still being slaughtered, who then was making movies about Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

No one. Our Lord made it clear prophets don't get garlands until they're dead and buried.

And while, elsewhere on this blog, the debate rages over whether any pastoral prayer should include a petition that God our Father would cause our civil magistrates to repent of their hatred of justice and mercy and bring an end to the slaughter of untold millions of unborn babies they have presided over, there are a few heroes at work in our cities today...

The utility of the spirituality of the church yesterday and today...

(Tim) In a comment under the post, "Two-kingdom's tendentious misuse of the Establishment Clause," Ken Patrick wrote: "Christianity is a threat to the existing political order because it is a call to a new way of living." Here are some thoughts I've had while watching that discussion...

Excellent comments, Ken, although I'd like to tweak your statement slightly: "Christianity is a threat to the existing religious (or cultic) order because it’s a call to turn from the our worship of the cult of the state to worship the One True Living God. Mind you: He has appointed a day when He will judge all men..."

In other words, let's acknowledge not only that the US Constitution does not establish separation of church and state, but also that there's never been a politas in history that's had separation of church and state. And those who reassure themselves they live in such a politas today here in these United States are deluded.

Among a host of things proving their error is the river of Molech’s blood we swim in each day. Millions of slaughtered children—a billion worldwide, now—proving precisely which god our state worships. His name is Molech, and we remain at ease in Wheaton and Escondido and St. Louis and Manhattan.

It’s weird...

A primer on two-kingdom, spirituality of the church, redemptive-historical evasions...

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.... (2 Timothy 4:3).

(Tim) Darryl Hart is Director of Partnered Projects at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and an adjunct faculty member at Westminster Seminary in California (WSC). He wrote a helpful bio of J. Gresham Machen titled Defending the Faith. He's also done a short history of the OPC titled Fighting the Good Fight which made me want to go back to my roots there in that denomination--that is, until I remembered what the OPC actually was like. As in somnolent by way of its distinctives, one of which is variously referred to here and other places as R2K (radical two kingdom), 2K (two kingdom), or "the spirituality of the Church."

Concerning the two books above, buy and read them, carefully. If you trace your spiritual or cultural lineage back to the popular evangelicalism of the twentieth century as many of Dr. Hart's admirers do, you need to know the history of men like J. Oliver Buswell, J. Gresham Machen, and the denomination Machen founded called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You need to know how real dispensationalism with its always-attendant moralism dogged fundamentalism and the early evangelicals; but also Machen's courageous stand against it. This history will go a long way toward explaining why many otherwise good reformed men today seem careless about cruelty and injustice, and indifferent to the sodomitic bondage and slaughtered babies at the headwaters of the river of blood we drive through each day in this Babylon that is our home.

Dr. Hart does a superb job documenting Machen's opposition to the binding together of the Church and the feminine anti-alcohol and tobacco crusade that, by way of Fundamentalism, sought to extend its reach into conservative presbyterianism. He said "no," and our R2K brothers think of themselves as the true keepers of Machen's flame. Sadly, though, what started out as opposition to teetotalers, prohibitionists, and other moralistic crusaders has morphed into what appears to be a lack of compassion and love for our neighbors and opposition to the Moral Law itself in our work of obedience to the Great Commission...

The relationship between a pastor's private and public duties (part I)...

(Tim) Pastor Stephen Baker serves on the pastoral staff of Church of the Good Shepherd while also serving as Dean of ClearNote Pastors College--a sister institution to Christ the Word's Reformed Evangelical Pastors College in Toledo. Here is the first in a series of posts by Stephen on the necessity of training pastors for holiness--not simply the performance of public duties.

* * *

Playing a musical instrument requires hours and hours of private practice and study before it can be done in public. A man who has never touched an organ would be a fool if he thought he could publicly perform a Bach fugue on the first try. The same is true with playing basketball. One does not learn to play like Michael Jordan simply by watching from the stands. A surgeon does not perform intricate brain surgery without years of preparation. In all of these disciplines, there is a direct connection between the quality of the private preparation and the outcome of the public performance.

The same principle applies to the pastorate. A man who neglects the private duties of the ministry cannot expect to be fruitful in the public duties. Despite this clear reality, however, the emphasis in pastoral training at the seminary level is usually on the outward, public duties of the pastorate. In seminary, the vast majority of time and energy is devoted to making men capable shepherds, preachers, and counselors. But the emphasis in the New Testament is on making pastors holy men who meditate on the Word who do not shrink from suffering hardship. (To read the rest of Pastor Baker's post...)

Pornography and faith...

(Tim) These wise words were made as a comment under the recent post, Stats on internet pornography, by Alex McNeilly, a young sax student in Church of the Good Shepherd. Thank you, Alex.

* * *

Regardless of how guarded any home is against sin, particularly the sexual sin of the media, in the world opportunities to indulge in it will abound. But even as we build larger and stronger walls against these sins in the home, worldly access to them becomes ever more available as we see in the stats in this post. As a result, I agree with Kevin that the strongest defense against these things lies in the spiritual battle.

We must teach our children the dangers of sexual sin and pornography, so that when they go into the world (a friend's house, a computer lab, a video store, etc.), where there are no guards, their hearts will already be fortified against these iniquities...

"I yuv you, dwamma"...

(Tim) Responding to the post The invisible woman and its comments, one Titus 2 (older) woman wrote:

I recently heard from an old classmate, sombody who knew me as a teen and with whom I have had no contact for thirty five years. Having asked her to tell me about herself and her life, I received a letter telling of her early marriage that lasted seven years and ended in divorce. The marriage produced one child and so years of single parenting were combined with continuing education in pursuit of the sheepskin attesting to her qualification for the career of her choice. That career, however, turned out to be less than a "dream come true," and she shared that, having recently remarried a successful businessman who would appear to have significant material wealth, she joyfully abandoned her chosen career to work full time in her husband's office.

Her daughter is grown, upwardly mobile, and living in New York City. Her husband's children are adults. So, when her obligations in his office are fulfilled, her life revolves around travel, charity work, exercise, and entertaining. She plays the accordion, she participated in a beauty pageant last year and intends to do so again this year. (This at the age of 56!) They do triathlons together, snowmobile, and enjoy the lakes in the summer...

Stats on internet pornography...

(Joseph) Some sad statistics in here. Particularly worth noting is that one out of three internet pornography consumers are women. Very soon, we'll need a program for young women similar to what David Canfield is doing for our young men. (Stay tuned for ClearNote Fellowship's soon-to-be-released book for young men on sex and marriage, written by David Canfield help from Nathan Alberson.)

New Year's resolutions for your congregation...

(Tim) One young mother in our church has been encouraged by several lists of resolutions she's been reading. Among resolutions written by believers, the granddaddy of them all is the one written by Jonathan Edwards...

The Reformed doctrine of reaching down...

(Tim, w/thanks to Ben Cr.) One of the more hidden members of Good Shepherd Band is Aaron Jones, an early music keyboardist who serves the Lord by "reaching down." What's the reference?

Check out his myspace Radio Friendly: American Pirates page--particularly his song, "Reach Down." (I also appreciated "I Shall Be Satisfied.")

Knowing many of our readers are forthrightly Reformed, I can anticipate objections to a Reformed man putting "the least of these" to song...

He will gently lead the nursing ewes...

A voice says, “Call out.” Then he answered, “What shall I call out?”

All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, When the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, Lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; Lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” Behold, the Lord GOD will come with might, With His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him And His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes. (Isaiah 40:6-11)

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) One young couple gave birth to their son. They held him and cooed over him and loved him and prayed for him and sang hymns to him until, two hours later, he died. They allowed their pastor to hold their son, too. The beautiful nurses dressed the couple's son in miniature baby clothes they themselves had knit for this and every one of their babies. This was their life--they spent each day in their metro-area preemie unit serving their babies and their babies' mom and dad as they fought, then gave in to death.

After two hours of love, their son died. Mom and Dad asked their pastor to take their son to the funeral home. The pastor took him in his arms. He was dressed in the nurses' homemade clothes and wrapped in a warm blue blanket. Down the stairs and out to the car.

The pastor laid him on the passenger's seat for the twenty-minute drive to the funeral home and wondered at the beauty of these nurses...

"My little daughter is dying..."

(Tim) This is a sermon manuscript--not a transcript--and thus differs substantially from the sermon itself.

From the Pulpit of Church of the Good Shepherd
(Service held at Sherwood Oaks Christian Church)

Funeral Service for Elizabeth Rasmusen held July 24, 2009 at 10:00 AM

My Little Daughter Is Dying
Mark 5:21-24; 35-43

(Preliminary comments on the frequency of death of children in Colonial America, followed by excerpts from prayer requests taken from the flip sides of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon manuscripts.)

Professor Stephen Stein, a retired faculty member here at Indiana University, read the flip sides of hundreds of the scraps of paper on which Jonathan Edwards wrote his sermons. At the time, paper was a valuable commodity and Edwards recycled the pieces of paper given him by his parishioners containing their prayer requests each Lord’s Day, later writing his sermons on them. Professor Stein published an article outlining the content of those requests and they're instructive for us today, on this occasion of the death of little Lizzie Rasmusen. Listen as I read you a few excerpts of these requests and see if there is anything for us to learn from souls who have gone before us...

A few reasons why gambling dishonors God...

(Tim) Many believers gamble, some in the stock market, others playing bingo or the lottery, and still others in casinos. So posting this from David Wegener, our Africa correspondent, is no exercise in a well-worn public policy debate, but rather a pastoral warning to me, you, and every believer. Thank you, David, for passing this on.

* * *

We got some new books for the Theological College of Central Africa library, recently. Now they are being processed to go into the collection and I was reading one of them this morning. The book is, John H. Leith, 2001, Pilgrimage of a Presbyterian: Collected Shorter Writings, ed Charles E. Raynal, Louisville: Geneva Press. On pages 208-13, there's a short article he wrote in 1956 titled, "Gambling--What's Wrong with It?." Here's a summary:

1. "Gambling encourages the belief that a man can enjoy the advantages of a prosperous society without making a significant contribution to that society."

2. "Gambling arouses false hopes and gives little in return."

3. "Gambling is parasitic by nature. It creates no new wealth and performs no useful service. At best, it merely redistributes wealth from ... the many ... to the few."

4. Gambling is an attempt "to escape responsible work..."

John Owen on the holy war...

(Tim, slightly paraphrased from John Owen) The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart. When a man has established a habit of thinking about grace and mercy in such a way as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

No man should think he's making progress in holiness if he doesn't make a habit of stomping on the bellies of his lusts.

Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Abortion: Here am I, send me...

(Tim) Often when I write about the slaughter of the unborn, readers grow alarmed and wonder if I might be recommending armed revolution?

No, I've never recommended armed revolution, but any and everything short of it. Little ones made in the Image of our Mighty God are being heartlessly slaughtered in our cities and we eat turkey and stuffing, then gather Lord's Day to celebrate the beginning of Advent singing, "Away in a manger, no room for a bed; the little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head."

Few times in salvation history have the people of God cultivated such a highly sophisticated ability to worship the God of justice and truth while living in the midst of unjust, oppressive bloodshed. Typical of cities around our nation, here in Bloomington approximately one out of every five children conceived in their mother's womb is slaughtered. The horror of Nazi Germany doesn't begin to approach us in numbers or the relative innocence and helplessness of its victims. Molech in ancient Canaan didn't devour twenty percent of the children of the land, nor did the death toll reach one billion children...

A Psalm of comfort on a hot summer day...

(Tim) Doubting, I tell myself that, if I were righteous, I could take comfort from this Psalm. But alas, I am not. I look at my heart and my sin overwhelms me. And yet, there is One Who is my righteousness, Whose robes are spotless and reserved for sinners who receive Him by faith. Oh how deep are the riches of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ! How kind and patient is our God! Come Lord Jesus--quickly! Bring us peace.

* * *

(A Psalm of David.) Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass, And fade like the green herb. Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your judgment as the noonday.

Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret, it leads only to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land, And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity...

For good works...

Speaking about evangelicals’ single-minded focus on evangelism, my Dad used to say: “Evangelicals only want to see people saved. After they’re saved, they think the person might as well die and go to Heaven because it’s all over.”

Is there a purpose to our lives after we’re saved?

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

According to Scripture, being saved is not the end of our lives, but the beginning of the work God has prepared for us to do...

Entering Heaven through much tribulation...

Here's a warm encouragment for those dear souls struggling with sickness, persecution, doubt, or despair:

Christ (had to endure) a very great trial in the time of His agony; so God is wont to exercise His people with great trials. Christ met with great opposition in that work that He had to do; so believers are likely to meet with great opposition in running the race that is set before them. Christ, as man, had a feeble nature that was in itself very insufficient to sustain such a conflict, or to support such a load as was coming upon Him. So the saints have the same weak human nature, and beside that, great sinful infirmities that Christ (didn't have) which (puts) them under great disadvantages, and greatly enhance(s) the difficulty of their work. Those great tribulations and difficulties that were before Christ, were the way in which He was to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; so His followers must expect, "through much tribulation to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." The cross was to Christ the way to the crown of glory, and so it is to His disciples.

-Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, Christ's Agony

Sunlight on the Internet

Lack of light leads to germs while nothing cleanses more thoroughly than the sun. For these reasons Tim and I publish valid email addresses along with contact information on this blog. We also try to remain actively engaged in the comment sections of our posts rather than just on the main blog page.

We do so because we believe as pastors we must approach all of life pastorally. This medium is not the Christian equivalent of Berkeley's Free Speech Zone. It's a medium to be claimed for Christ. Which means, first, that Tim and I are responsible for what we say here; and second, that this blog is intended to be helpful spiritually to others, not just to burnish our writing skills or public reputations.

We hope those who participate actively or inactively in this blog benefit from the thoughts expressed here--and that the sum of all our words is glory to the Father through the Son.

As part of the discipline of approaching this blog pastorally Tim and I are committed to explaining--and at times defending--what we write in our posts. We want our readers to know who we are, the churches we pastor, how we can be reached and the theological commitments we bring to the table. We do so recognizing that sin is crouching, seeking to devour those who are not just as careful to obey God on the internet as they are in more personal areas of life.

We have seen the effect over time of the anonymity and pseudonymity in the closed discussion lists that are increasingly common on Reformed sites. Even when discussion is open and moderators are identified many Reformed sites degenerate into virtual ghettoes.

The smug, self-referential nature of discussion in such groups produces closed communities where arrogance and vitriol dominate. And because the internet lacks the inherent accountability...

Augustine & Robert E. Lee on entertainment...

While reading Augustine's City of God, I find a number of things striking, particularly the constant scorn Augustine heaps on the Roman pagans for their decadent pursuit of the pleasure of the stage.

Augustine wrote The City of God in defense of the Christian God, Jesus Christ, and the Christians who worshipped Him. Rome had just been sacked by the Barbarians and the Romans said Christians were responsible for this defeat because they refused to worship the Roman gods. According to the Romans, their gods had been offended by the Christians' refusal to honor them so they abandoned Rome to her enemies and she was overthrown.

About as politically incorrect as a man could be, Augustine refuses to acknowledge the Roman gods as any gods at all, but rather calls them demons, devils, and no gods at all. Pointing out that when the Barbarians were destroying Rome they acknowledged the Christian houses of worship as safe houses and didn't harm anyone gathered there, Augustine reminds the Romans that the Barbarians extended no such respect to the temples of the Roman gods. Why were the Roman gods so impotent, he asks? And isn't it even more humiliating to the Roman gods that those who worshipped them joined with Christians in fleeing into Christian houses of worship for safety, acting as if they were Christians to save their skin?

Augustine moves on to compare the character of Romans with that of Christians, and the principal evidence he cites of the Romans' moral lassitude and effeminate degeneracy is their love of all forms of amusement--particularly the amusement Christians saw as the depth of depravity, the theater.