tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54480987718452365422024-03-16T14:52:51.592-04:00my burgSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.comBlogger1798125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-73278798827940245672024-03-02T14:11:00.004-05:002024-03-02T14:13:01.432-05:00T. S. Eliot on liberalism<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfA9TJNqJn0j7Z3XB7FOmXcNEVO8aT90c8DU8kLqO-VJ0dpXnO-kt5A25BvZgPizLiyS7Z2f4O7c2a2gIkiSKnu9sNZx0-KDmsnUEEqiS_HdJal3Wu-5j3qyYJ15vH7KalUWs7Cm_-U6scGqBHpMnTzWM5RBoEc2Sn5ytHPe1NWaZX76SCzTbzgvVLQxwL/s557/TS-Eliot%20blog.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfA9TJNqJn0j7Z3XB7FOmXcNEVO8aT90c8DU8kLqO-VJ0dpXnO-kt5A25BvZgPizLiyS7Z2f4O7c2a2gIkiSKnu9sNZx0-KDmsnUEEqiS_HdJal3Wu-5j3qyYJ15vH7KalUWs7Cm_-U6scGqBHpMnTzWM5RBoEc2Sn5ytHPe1NWaZX76SCzTbzgvVLQxwL/s320/TS-Eliot%20blog.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">"By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on, to which the alternative is a hopeless apathy, Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos." </span><p></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">-- T. S. Eliot, <i>Christianity and Culture</i> (1948) </span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-31414693976477062132024-02-01T10:35:00.002-05:002024-02-01T10:36:02.150-05:00one-liners<p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW7f0aGUSdl-RvK2TeIVtRVhvE2zDMxJhCNIVB2CH94qeK8aRAgQ0Xa4c_rTCNB6GlThZEaPrmKgSY4geKD0rK_HUIk8N674a2OSJKvVrrwo-idyuYcKnW1K_YqrxKfNxFMdpA_zr1MlflbLQnAQH7LPVl4-9J50q7F4qfXsEIGrkLAJztBiGaqA3qelmJ/s500/steven%20wright.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW7f0aGUSdl-RvK2TeIVtRVhvE2zDMxJhCNIVB2CH94qeK8aRAgQ0Xa4c_rTCNB6GlThZEaPrmKgSY4geKD0rK_HUIk8N674a2OSJKvVrrwo-idyuYcKnW1K_YqrxKfNxFMdpA_zr1MlflbLQnAQH7LPVl4-9J50q7F4qfXsEIGrkLAJztBiGaqA3qelmJ/s320/steven%20wright.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></span></div><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i>Here are 25 of my favorite one-liners from comedian Steven Wright:</i> </span><p></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">1) I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">2) Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">3) Half the people you know are below average.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">4) 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">5) A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">6) All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">7) The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">8) OK, so what's the speed of dark?</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">9) How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">10) If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">11) Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">12) When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">13) Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">14) I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">15) If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">16) Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">17) What happens if you get scared half to death twice?</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">18) My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">19) Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">20) If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">21) A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">22) Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">23) The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">24) The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">25) If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> </span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-75768280421566166522024-01-15T12:33:00.000-05:002024-01-15T12:33:40.905-05:00a red, red rose<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH6J1fVjrK0BczwWk70X-68Akq6HyKN79NYxtFlRE8D6oTZNGWO0tKbl1yYjDAwytgXEbgOS0VbYiXIKtDbGwdDt2JyHx0Y8TFWjpBNjKDVyC-a7B8lxHCWcDOJLpndweTjQuEvmM6Z4qDplpsHhjwC0L7gRQ_9QFthMH9dEhNWmWUdTj7zhK4-4mGU_kC/s750/rose-milly-sime-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH6J1fVjrK0BczwWk70X-68Akq6HyKN79NYxtFlRE8D6oTZNGWO0tKbl1yYjDAwytgXEbgOS0VbYiXIKtDbGwdDt2JyHx0Y8TFWjpBNjKDVyC-a7B8lxHCWcDOJLpndweTjQuEvmM6Z4qDplpsHhjwC0L7gRQ_9QFthMH9dEhNWmWUdTj7zhK4-4mGU_kC/s320/rose-milly-sime-unsplash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">O my Luve is like a red, red rose</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> That’s newly sprung in June;</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">O my Luve is like the melody</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> That’s sweetly played in tune.</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> So deep in luve am I;</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And I will luve thee still, my dear,</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> Till a’ the seas gang dry.</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I will love thee still, my dear,</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> While the sands o’ life shall run.</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And fare thee weel, my only luve!</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> And fare thee weel awhile!</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And I will come again, my luve,</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> Though it were ten thousand mile.</span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Robert Burns </span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #666666; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>Image credit: photo above by Milly Sime on Unsplash.</b></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-83208107926571192042024-01-11T11:26:00.004-05:002024-01-11T11:29:58.994-05:00God's authority<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAG1AE39ypz_WhHAoiFdLxIlMDK6hDoeloIDS0OIJKpKzgysU77LKrU642FpD7TCIYEVXXSBwNvTS2VYTU0oJ5xabpN8w0jiTYUTeltvoo6gC50EcLFzD3afttq5qtkEdoDrZhOVcedQhv11zfuZCIIzjeqym85LOQtUnHS_Te_dGGX56Ic_CEZW3Q0eIW/s280/Henry-Carl-FH-cont.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="200" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAG1AE39ypz_WhHAoiFdLxIlMDK6hDoeloIDS0OIJKpKzgysU77LKrU642FpD7TCIYEVXXSBwNvTS2VYTU0oJ5xabpN8w0jiTYUTeltvoo6gC50EcLFzD3afttq5qtkEdoDrZhOVcedQhv11zfuZCIIzjeqym85LOQtUnHS_Te_dGGX56Ic_CEZW3Q0eIW/s1600/Henry-Carl-FH-cont.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Regarding the authority of God and his revealed word, Carl Henry writes, <br /></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>"Beyond all doubt, biblical religion is authoritarian in nature. The sovereign God, creator of the universe, Lord of history, dispenser of destiny, determines and rewards the true and the good. God commands and has the right to be obeyed, and the power also to punish the disobedient and reward the faithful. Behind God's will stands omnipotent power. The notion that the individual subjectively determines what is ultimately good and evil, true and false, not only results in an encroaching nihilism, but also presupposes the illusion of a godless [i.e., God-less] world. God can be ignored only if we assume the autonomy of the world. But it is God who in his purpose has determined the existence and nature of the world. <br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>"The divine sovereignty extends to every sphere of life-- the sphere of work, whether in the laboratory or in the forum; the sphere of love, whether in the home or in neighbor-relations; the sphere of justice, whether between the nations or in local cities and towns. Divine sovereignty can be thus formulated because it extends also to the sphere of truth. <br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>"We cannot understand anything comprehensively apart from its relation to the Creator and Sustainer of all. Human beings are commanded by him not only to love the truth but also to do it (John 3:21; 1 John 1:6); knowledge is not simply an intellectual concern but involves ethical obligation as well. Impenitence spells doom, for man can in no way justify his spiritual revolt. God's authority was firmly stamped on man's conscience at creation, and clearly republished in the Bible which meshes man's fall and need of moral rescue with God's gracious offer of forgiveness and promise of new life to all who repent and trust him." <br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;">-- Carl F. H. Henry, <u>God, Revelation, and Authority</u>, vol. IV (Word Books, 1979), pp 15-16.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-rxedhTokeuVxHn7mQ0v2vWUBRCI-MwiJnrCun6jyX0adIi8oYZKQQoV1vcf0Cf63UiCqNgA0EtXwj0B5w43pJ6yoDlsjcTW4tXkM71THw6MgZQicIqwc5q0PLKnetqVnBqKVqb32XOkWfM3DofPJlSZJyRqFppj1dGSolWiA6hL75mlO6pQlt8pK4kf/s750/henry%20problem%20of%20authority.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="750" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-rxedhTokeuVxHn7mQ0v2vWUBRCI-MwiJnrCun6jyX0adIi8oYZKQQoV1vcf0Cf63UiCqNgA0EtXwj0B5w43pJ6yoDlsjcTW4tXkM71THw6MgZQicIqwc5q0PLKnetqVnBqKVqb32XOkWfM3DofPJlSZJyRqFppj1dGSolWiA6hL75mlO6pQlt8pK4kf/w400-h309/henry%20problem%20of%20authority.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><br /><p><br /></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-33809363927688374102023-10-01T13:32:00.002-04:002023-10-01T13:37:24.536-04:00time and eternity<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2x7c9IYPzRk_l17AFTyPtZNK2B96NYGzmm1MxiTTfvZAcqRSDfcBLNFOIr6ZfWRYg1lzNQMcJNXHMPd6fTnkbrVJTkuUYuAuLUAKCVehl1nNQMzTMWLqw19MAFUdOEVYQvpqUOD6mPwmkrQYIOXEnKGDDpwL8klv3RTwh7eerNKXC9uEnldxKpEF54ASj/s800/murray-campbell-paris-clock-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="800" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2x7c9IYPzRk_l17AFTyPtZNK2B96NYGzmm1MxiTTfvZAcqRSDfcBLNFOIr6ZfWRYg1lzNQMcJNXHMPd6fTnkbrVJTkuUYuAuLUAKCVehl1nNQMzTMWLqw19MAFUdOEVYQvpqUOD6mPwmkrQYIOXEnKGDDpwL8klv3RTwh7eerNKXC9uEnldxKpEF54ASj/w400-h293/murray-campbell-paris-clock-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;">"Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God... For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.</span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;">" (Psalm 90:1-2, 4 ESV)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">God is eternal, and we his creatures inhabit time with its many divisions. This is a limitation, but also a gift from God. In my reading of Abraham Kuyper's </span><i style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">To Be Near Unto God, </i><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">I highlighted these excerpts from chapter 60, "His Ways Are Everlasting." He wrote this devotional in the Netherlands at the beginning of the year 1904. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">We did not invent time, and its division into years and days; these are ours by God’s appointment.</span></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>Our God, moreover, whose are the goings of the age, has not only beautifully divided human life, and thereby mightily enlarged it to our idea, but he also pervades it continually with his faithfulness and Fatherly care. From week to week, and from day to day his mercy and love are over us.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>He is the Father of the everlasting ages, who from sheer grace divides, for the sake of enrichment, the life of his child even into smallest parts, and pervades each division and subdivision with his grace to keep us and to protect us.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>Time is a form of existence given us by grace.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>Whatever the year of life may be, it is never understood from itself. Before God, all of human life, with all its years, forms one plan, one end, one whole.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>All of earthly life is nothing but riding down the line to the first station, where the real journey through the tablelands of eternity begins.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>He who molds and forms and prepares us for eternity is the Lord. In his works upon the heart, in his forming of the person, as well as in his preparing of the spirit within us for eternity, the goings of the age are also his.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>The standard here is not what would give us pleasure and love for a moment; but what governs his appointments of our life is what we are to become in the course of centuries.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">--Abraham Kuyper</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i>Image credit: photo above of tower clock in Paris, France, by Murray Campbell on Unsplash.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-73372571017913993882023-09-18T16:05:00.002-04:002023-09-18T16:05:45.660-04:00flimsy as stone<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9ZhU-JtL9_N95FHTq8NVALQRlcw45znzqi-KvKRSVS8VcXoKl6NSp-ApLCYoeclN4MSNkAPmCOQd7hneeCw3CjsE3oxCpG_S94u9SUfsDsPCo2Zhas-5deFNFO7-Ko3IPKiPVR81FfMUc3esYOWmHe2i04RoIb_SVYnIivmp8x43EWo8pHJzJMECZsF5/s800/yeswanth-m-aman-citadel-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="800" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9ZhU-JtL9_N95FHTq8NVALQRlcw45znzqi-KvKRSVS8VcXoKl6NSp-ApLCYoeclN4MSNkAPmCOQd7hneeCw3CjsE3oxCpG_S94u9SUfsDsPCo2Zhas-5deFNFO7-Ko3IPKiPVR81FfMUc3esYOWmHe2i04RoIb_SVYnIivmp8x43EWo8pHJzJMECZsF5/w400-h289/yeswanth-m-aman-citadel-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." (Hebrews 11:10) </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Here's an excerpt from a recent post by Tim Challies... </span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"Truly, the most impressive things on earth are ruins. The most impressive civilizations are ruins. The greatest people are ruins. This is a world of ruins. And this teaches us that today’s most breathtaking buildings will also someday be ruins; the most powerful civilizations today will eventually be ruins; the greatest people today will inevitably be reduced to ruins. That’s just the way it is in this broken, beaten, battered world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">"And then I ponder this: We are going to a city where there will be no ruins. The gates of pearl will never come unhinged. The streets of gold will never be torn up. The walls of jasper will never fall. The great temple will never lose its opulence. The many mansions will never crumble, never burn, never be destroyed. To the contrary, what is built there will last forever. The nation of God’s people will ascend without challenge and without interruption, and they will never be conquered, never be surpassed. No individual there will rise only to fall and then be remembered to history for his ignominious collapse.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">"As we ponder the rot and wreckage of this earth, let us remember, let us believe, and let us joyfully anticipate: We will leave this world of woe for a world of bliss, this world of ruins for a world without ruins."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">-- Tim Challies, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<a href="https://www.challies.com/articles/something-as-flimsy-as-stone/">Something as Flimsy as Stone</a>"</span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">mage above: the Citadel Hill of Amman, Jordan, photo by yeswanth M on Unsplash. </span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-27778609063115658082023-08-16T19:45:00.004-04:002023-08-16T19:46:07.639-04:00clearly seen<p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU0qxJDlbmUi_WDjAuxH5tFFJkzIV5RS_0Gfc8IurqennaIPHOyM38KRpcd-a8FYR055lMGlbbgFHLeW9M7zUrEN6dzUE9NpPEcyCRBnYBncvbq8lpcictyn-9v8WJ5VPSGbcxhpPBM5u6pUEn9HYW6AAIw0LnWk6lDP2PBEx16g4ljHeAC3R01NMSzSOf/s413/print-kuyper-portrait-lrg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="336" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU0qxJDlbmUi_WDjAuxH5tFFJkzIV5RS_0Gfc8IurqennaIPHOyM38KRpcd-a8FYR055lMGlbbgFHLeW9M7zUrEN6dzUE9NpPEcyCRBnYBncvbq8lpcictyn-9v8WJ5VPSGbcxhpPBM5u6pUEn9HYW6AAIw0LnWk6lDP2PBEx16g4ljHeAC3R01NMSzSOf/s320/print-kuyper-portrait-lrg.jpg" width="260" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." (Romans 1:19-20a ESV) </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;">"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." (Psalm 19:1-2 ESV) </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"God himself is in and behind nature. Hence nature is not a finished work of art, that exists by itself outside of and apart from God. But God himself gives us to see and to hear his Majesty in the starry heavens by night, in the colors of light by day, in the wonders of the vegetable and animal-world, in the splendor of the sea, in the roar of the hurricane, sometimes even in the rolling of his thunder. In all this, is, and lives, the God Whom we worship. In the throbbings of the life of nature throbs his own Divine life. Whatever moves in creation, flows through it, and addresses itself to us from it, is the inner motion of God's own life. All nature is nothing else than a living, throbbing veil back of which God hides himself, and in whose folds and undulations he reveals Himself to us, clothed with Majesty. In the profound saying of the Apostle: The Invisible God is not only understood in nature but is also clearly seen.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">"This clear sight is the all-important matter. Though this screen, this veil, this investiture of nature, God must be seen in his Omnipotence and Divinity. We are not to look upon nature as upon a dead palace which is beautiful by reason of its vast variety of lines and forms, but we must feel and know, that standing before the firmament, the cloudy heavens and the varied scenes of earth, we stand before God. That it is He who presents himself to us in it all, enters into us through it all, addresses us by it all, and who throughout the length and the breadth of it all gives us to behold the workings of the fingers of his Majesty. It is God who makes the lark sing for us. It is God who cleaves the sea, so that its waters foam. It is God who calls forth the sun from his tent, and at even tide directs his return thereto. It is God who every evening lights the twinkling fires in the stars. It is God whose voice we hear in the thunder. And only he who in all this, feels the very life of God, and clearly sees in it all, the Divinity of Omnipotence, understands the glory of the Invisible."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Abraham Kuyper, <u>To Be Near Unto God</u>, chapter 44. </span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-85282388954729426612023-08-10T14:03:00.002-04:002023-08-10T14:05:00.962-04:00describing the fog<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs3ny1rMAqjJIxuwmf8uzb2kaZCisGGMpfcaHiJj5WBl7UkRfW1THIorMS3guHVS-8Hf_uoauyVCTmRRyP2xqyOucg7bvwFX89gHuVvdavKOzqiedn_v1nX41el7zKCOBr571vcQIsyRTlSu3i-iRZN0aDUWCn0wlzW31V5K9m0hYhSfsTu2HuiFBOsbBj/s875/biltmore%20trees%20mist.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="875" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs3ny1rMAqjJIxuwmf8uzb2kaZCisGGMpfcaHiJj5WBl7UkRfW1THIorMS3guHVS-8Hf_uoauyVCTmRRyP2xqyOucg7bvwFX89gHuVvdavKOzqiedn_v1nX41el7zKCOBr571vcQIsyRTlSu3i-iRZN0aDUWCn0wlzW31V5K9m0hYhSfsTu2HuiFBOsbBj/w400-h279/biltmore%20trees%20mist.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">How would you go about describing fog, or kinds of fog? How would you feel about enduring days without sunshine? </span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">C. S. Lewis, writing to his brother Warnie in 1932, describes the mists he was experiencing at their home in Oxford (the Kilns). He even seemed to be enjoying the fog! I would love to be as poetically observant about the weather as he was. He writes...</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>That is a thing you and I have to be thankful for–the fact that we do not only don’t dislike but positively enjoy almost every kind of weather. We had about three days of dense fog here lately. That was enough to tax even my powers of doing without the sun, but though it became oppressive in the end I felt that it was a cheap price to pay for its beauties. </i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>There was one evening of mist about three feet deep lying on the fields under the moon–like the mist in the first chapter of <u>Phantastes</u>. There was a morning (up in the top wood) of mist pouring along the ground through the fir trees, so thick and visible that it looked tangible as treacle [syrup].</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>Then there were afternoons of fairly thin, but universal fog, blotting out colour but leaving shapes distinct enough to become generalised–silhouettes revealing (owing to the suppression of detail) all sorts of beauties of grouping that one does not notice on a coloured day. </i></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Finally, there were days of real fog: days of chaos come again: especially fine at the pond, when the water was only a darker tinge in the fog and the wood on the far side only the ghostliest suggestion: and to hear the scurry of the waterfowl but not to see them.</span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>Not only was it an exciting time in itself but by the contrast has made today even more beautiful than it would have been–a clear, stinging, winter sunshine.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>-- From <u>The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis</u>, Volume 2, 1931-1949 (HarperOne, 2009).</i></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-------------- </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i>Above, my photograph of the morning fog at Biltmore Estates a couple of years ago.</i></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-25652856734277459862023-07-19T21:28:00.001-04:002023-07-19T21:29:45.634-04:00my 1960 playlist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPTHEo8aTL8Z-IuA47JT_KdFEnciai94e2-DkjQcnaI4OgiNBXc0wLGbRyiFVBr5bS095ZD3aDyV4pCKqLls8ndxkaFPkJPVasHcI7l24I3ngAEWQlEG4hnotpmMcPpYcoSK4ZdcgFbqAFul4-28yZxFsYuuMlhhEtqDSD9m2aNSUUXGaUNrCBBmru_moX/s800/belafonte.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPTHEo8aTL8Z-IuA47JT_KdFEnciai94e2-DkjQcnaI4OgiNBXc0wLGbRyiFVBr5bS095ZD3aDyV4pCKqLls8ndxkaFPkJPVasHcI7l24I3ngAEWQlEG4hnotpmMcPpYcoSK4ZdcgFbqAFul4-28yZxFsYuuMlhhEtqDSD9m2aNSUUXGaUNrCBBmru_moX/s320/belafonte.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Confession</u><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">: I did not have a music playlist in 1960, being only 9 years old, and so I listened mainly to the records (33 1/3 LPs) that my parents played on their HiFi turntable in our home. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">What got me thinking in this groove was hearing Harry Belafonte on an Amazon playlist, selected by my wife tonight. Belafonte, a famous Calypso singer, passed away in April of this year. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">What's amazing to me is that hearing a just few notes and words of a song transported me sixty years back to the tunes that played in my childhood home...</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;">But I'm sad to say I'm on my way<br /></i><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Won't be back for many a day<br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>My heart is down<br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>My head is turning around<br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>I had to leave a little girl in Kingston town<br /></i></span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>(Jamaica Farewell)</i></span></span></div><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">There was Harry Belafonte, a favorite of my parents. My mother especially liked "Moon River" by Andy Williams, and being an accordionist, she enjoyed songs like "Beer Barrel Polka", which is still sung these days at the Green Bay Packers' home games. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">We had a number of albums by Chet Atkins, whom we all enjoyed, and endeared me to the flat-picking style of guitar playing. I remember hearing records of Mitch Miller ("Sing Along with Mitch"), Perry Como, and my favorite at the time, the Kingston Trio.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Around that time my older brother introduced me to the Ventures (1961) and the Beach Boys (1962). Ed Sullivan introduced us to the Beatles (1964), and a cousin from California gave me albums by the Doors (1967) and by Crosby, Stills, and Nash (1969). </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">At that point my own playlist was off and running.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> </span> </span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-66894837952710689032023-07-17T14:40:00.003-04:002023-07-17T14:42:03.217-04:00the future from 1950s science fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_-0-nByFyQKGbg6zCgutqID1BXv7R4-ykYxgy9nzE-nZRyd2FkyuaPHbxcVGJpOI2eoyJihnjhcrx4_HJvAqMT7BJ-_6SJSgMIVsBAWWiUZhLdClJ9pz2FjF1gTVo4-wKWVXMmY_m4kDufzgKHQmQ5JvJMFEdpoAMk_ZpFymSpkemvy0zzf_efbvjUbM/s900/SF%20books.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="900" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_-0-nByFyQKGbg6zCgutqID1BXv7R4-ykYxgy9nzE-nZRyd2FkyuaPHbxcVGJpOI2eoyJihnjhcrx4_HJvAqMT7BJ-_6SJSgMIVsBAWWiUZhLdClJ9pz2FjF1gTVo4-wKWVXMmY_m4kDufzgKHQmQ5JvJMFEdpoAMk_ZpFymSpkemvy0zzf_efbvjUbM/w640-h242/SF%20books.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I enjoy reading older science fiction, from the 1940s up to the turn of the century. I especially enjoy Andre (Alice) Norton, Clifford Simak, Philip K. Dick, and many others. And of course, C. S. Lewis's space trilogy tops the list.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">We may think that science fiction writers in the past, when visualizing the future of western civilization, tended to portray the greatest danger facing the human race as coming from reactionary, conservative, and institutional forces. That may be the case with some authors. But I've noted in at least four works </span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">the greatest danger was visualized as coming from more progressive -- and supposedly scientific -- influences. Here are a few excerpts... </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“The physical sciences, good and innocent in themselves, had already begun to be warped, had been subtly maneuvered in a certain direction. Despair of objective truth had been increasingly insinuated into the scientists; indifference to it, and a concentration upon mere power, had been the result… The very experiences of the dissecting room and the pathological laboratory were breeding a conviction that the stifling of all deep-set repugnances</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> was the first essential for progress.” </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- C. S. Lewis, <u>That Hideous Strength</u> (1945)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">"Would it ever end—men’s unthinking grasping for leadership, their mindless search for kings and gods, while within them their own powers withered? Always it had been the same; leaders arose holding before men the illusion of vast, glorious promises while they carefully led them into hells of lost dreams and broken promises."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Raymond F. Jones, <u>The Alien</u> (1951)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">"Odd—when Pax had ruled, there were thought police and the cardinal sin was to be a liberal, to experiment, to seek knowledge. Now the wheel had turned—to be conservative was suspect. To suggest that some old ways were better was to exhibit the evil signs of prejudice."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Andre Norton, <u>Star Born</u> (1957)</span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"While her sons had found graves, fighting for freedom, something had happened to the freedom for which they fought. Nobody knew quite what had happened, but it had gone away. Possibly it had been lost as emergency followed emergency on the international scene, possibly it had been strangled in red tape as regulation followed regulation on the national scene. The time had come in America, too, as it had come to foreign lands, when all actions that were not compulsory were forbidden. Thus, freedom had died."</span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Robert Moore Williams, <u>Doomsday Eve</u> (1957)</span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-65265306763062162062023-06-14T10:32:00.003-04:002023-06-14T10:32:51.539-04:00peace with God<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjj8y3h4AR1jrcay9_TUJl7-Hpk_t_wVPVRTxaeHaaIDcUUnmF5KCL-2UlwNufg9eYvzYJKFQY8zAqYkksFVScabBRxu4XPpCLwlJjAmwEWtPd6HVMD43WnOI0rcRzHa3yH32koHrVDH6ws1NOMSVyCk8q8tZODKdZTQSoilafCuAWw7Wkrd0F1ok9-g/s800/charlesdeluvio-unsplash-handshake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="800" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjj8y3h4AR1jrcay9_TUJl7-Hpk_t_wVPVRTxaeHaaIDcUUnmF5KCL-2UlwNufg9eYvzYJKFQY8zAqYkksFVScabBRxu4XPpCLwlJjAmwEWtPd6HVMD43WnOI0rcRzHa3yH32koHrVDH6ws1NOMSVyCk8q8tZODKdZTQSoilafCuAWw7Wkrd0F1ok9-g/w400-h275/charlesdeluvio-unsplash-handshake.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." (Romans 5:1-2 ESV)</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Though we were separated from God by the guilt of our sin, on the basis of Christ's finished work God has declared us justified. On the basis of Christ's finished work, He is at peace with us. Because God is at peace with us, because He has declared us justified, because we have returned to the purpose of our creation, we can in the present have a relationship with God and can have true peace in our own hearts. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"People struggle like mad to have peace in their hearts. They try all kinds of psychological methods to find some point of integration. But all such efforts lead only to disappointment unless it involves the relationship and the purpose for which we were created. The only way we can return to that purpose and to that relationship is by having our guilt before God removed on the basis of Christ's finished work. Once we have thus had our guilt removed, there can be a peace in our hearts that is not false, a peace that will never disappoint us." </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Francis Schaeffer, <u>The Finished Work of Christ</u> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Image credit: photo above by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash. </span> </span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-30107352596467363612023-06-07T17:04:00.004-04:002023-06-07T17:05:46.295-04:00faithfulness, not famousness<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSbNGF4cMqkxKMaLSJEOl4JiNP5uNZ8QnP61RZP-D37Yy8S5MX-dREo76ijSPSvj4xtcFrCWvLpiNiIqq84-dDoQDBx8Tg1YwfKD92QSp8M9R2On5KVE1h9Q6_ZGrlwSBL7xItMyvGxekoDsyV9-P1-wMXDlqGnvkMvc6nQkL2EV1hMcN8tNtnHTMCg/s1000/mark-hang-fung-so-unsplash-sweeping.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="1000" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSbNGF4cMqkxKMaLSJEOl4JiNP5uNZ8QnP61RZP-D37Yy8S5MX-dREo76ijSPSvj4xtcFrCWvLpiNiIqq84-dDoQDBx8Tg1YwfKD92QSp8M9R2On5KVE1h9Q6_ZGrlwSBL7xItMyvGxekoDsyV9-P1-wMXDlqGnvkMvc6nQkL2EV1hMcN8tNtnHTMCg/w400-h305/mark-hang-fung-so-unsplash-sweeping.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"In the parable of the talents, the master says to his servant, '</span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'</span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"The master, who represents God, praises his servant for being faithful. He doesn’t praise his servant for being awesome. He doesn’t praise his servant for being extreme, innovative, productive, or edgy. He doesn’t praise his servant for taking the road less traveled, finding self-fulfillment, or adding his verse to the story (see <i>Dead Poets Society</i>). He praises his servant for faithfully working with what he was given. The thing God cares about and honors is faithfulness, not famousness. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"Face it: faithfulness is pretty boring. Faithfulness looks like creating spreadsheets and changing diapers and caring for aging parents and setting up chairs on Sunday morning. Nobody gets a standing ovation for faithfulness. Nobody makes documentaries about faithful servants. Nobody notices faithful servants. Nobody except God, that is."</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-- Stephen Altrogge, <i>The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Thoughts on Following Jesus, Amish Romance, the Daniel Plan, the Tebow Effect, and the Odds of Finding Your Soul Mate</i> (Blazing Center Books, 2014)</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i>Image credit: photo above by Mark Hang Fung So on Unsplash.</i></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-30444445417926010022023-05-26T10:58:00.003-04:002023-05-26T11:00:40.596-04:00Alive to God<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5wOAXG8cpS0wJx6MnN9c4qRtz0gw9T3tcPDBRGkH7qS-jjsSFrrqp8_W27FRMY3wgWSqrnvi9P6wxcxuaD9BIwpWxPjhTSMvwQrcT5ImPWQ7AkkQVp9ZMFDebXamwY57Xvu7JXPptKWEyYfPAcleE4at0fXHy3bx2RdWyqFCTt3MrXGu93BhxZPcHiw/s900/garden%20tomb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5wOAXG8cpS0wJx6MnN9c4qRtz0gw9T3tcPDBRGkH7qS-jjsSFrrqp8_W27FRMY3wgWSqrnvi9P6wxcxuaD9BIwpWxPjhTSMvwQrcT5ImPWQ7AkkQVp9ZMFDebXamwY57Xvu7JXPptKWEyYfPAcleE4at0fXHy3bx2RdWyqFCTt3MrXGu93BhxZPcHiw/w400-h266/garden%20tomb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:8-11)</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">We as Christians must always keep in mind that not only did Jesus <u>die for our sins</u>, but that we, in union with Christ, have <u>died with him</u>, and so have been removed from the dominion of sin. This death to sin -- and reckoning ourselves to be dead to sin -- is not the ultimate goal, but rather, being able to live freely for God. Francis Schaeffer comments on Romans 6:10b, "...but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God." (KJV)...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>Jesus died once for all, but now He continues to live "unto God." He died, not just to die, but to be alive to God. Likewise, our calling as Christians is never primarily a negative thing. The basic Christian call is a positive thing. The first commandment, said Jesus, is to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Matt. 22:37). The word "don't" does not appear in this commandment. It is true that loving God means there are certain things we will want to avoid doing. These are, for instance, spelled out for us in the Ten Commandments. </i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>But our primary calling as Christians is a positive thing. So often Christians act as though the Christian calling is merely to have sort of an unhappy life and say no to this and no to that. But that isn't the point. There are certain negative things that are involved, which cause pain, but the calling is primarily a positive one. The calling is to be alive to God. The negative commands relate to things that hinder you from being alive to God. "He liveth unto God." And the only way to be alive to God is to be dead toward something else.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>What are we to be dead to? According to what Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:24, we are to be dead primarily toward ourselves. If we're to be Christ's disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Being alive to God does not mean being dead to a series of rules; it means being dead toward self. And this death to self is not just so that we might suffer but so that we might be alive to God.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>Christians constantly say to me, "I can't seem to find a reality in my Christian life." If there is to be a reality to our fellowship with God, there is a price to be paid. In order for Jesus to be alive to God, He had to die. In order for us to be alive to God in our daily walk, a daily death is needed. We must die daily to selfishness, to self-centeredness, to self-sufficiency. The death isn't the important thing. The being alive to God is the important thing. But if I'm going to be alive to God, there first must be the death.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>Jesus died and rose from the dead. We died with Christ. We will someday be raised physically from the dead. But we are to walk in the present in light of that future truth. We will not be raised physically from the dead in the future if we have not died with Christ in the past. And in the present life we are to be experiencing this, both in terms of dying daily to sin and of living daily to God.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>Do you want to be alive to God? Not just in the sense of being justified. Not just in the sense of one day having your body raised from the dead. Not just in the sense of one day being in heaven. Do you want the reality of being alive with God today, as a Christian? Then there must be a death. You can be active in Christian work. You can be a missionary. You can be a pastor. You can be a theology professor. You can be a thousand things. But if you want the reality of being alive with God and in fellowship with Him day by day, there must be the daily death. There is no other way.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;">-- From <u>The Finished Work of Christ</u>, by Francis Schaeffer (Crossway Books, 1998), pp 157-58.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">-------------- </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image credit: photo above of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, source unknown. </span></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-87598163212458568382023-05-08T11:45:00.001-04:002023-05-08T11:45:46.845-04:00eternal Shepherd<p><span style="color: #660000;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZ2HVyLjCHQTw31bOVoeaNJz8XHTM2lFKHesFZaCcKg5NgD8WQAr9vIf7QaXWZWH98A0KbfUbb1klzzmljiJxzXmOuepUOK1wgoIyXzTr4dNvDgnFRdo984V4NPNLiIUOGGjClMSycUqQah9dl3pc-28AG8m01qxqkfW4mxvvyBLRzpktje7AtZv2MQ/s900/'Shepherd_and_Sheep'_by_Anton_Mauve_Cincinnati_Art_Museum.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="900" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZ2HVyLjCHQTw31bOVoeaNJz8XHTM2lFKHesFZaCcKg5NgD8WQAr9vIf7QaXWZWH98A0KbfUbb1klzzmljiJxzXmOuepUOK1wgoIyXzTr4dNvDgnFRdo984V4NPNLiIUOGGjClMSycUqQah9dl3pc-28AG8m01qxqkfW4mxvvyBLRzpktje7AtZv2MQ/w400-h270/'Shepherd_and_Sheep'_by_Anton_Mauve_Cincinnati_Art_Museum.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></span></div><span style="color: #660000;"><i><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Therefore they are before the throne of God, a</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">nd serve him day and night in his temple; </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">the sun shall not strike them, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">nor any scorching heat. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">and he will guide them to springs of living water, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”</span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"> (Revelation 7:15-17 ESV)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;">"Eternal shepherding. This is a pastoral scene. This is what we are being given by John, a pastoral scene of the final assembly of the saints and of the life beyond the grave. In other words, as we look back over our lives, we can speak of the bleak herbage, of the wilderness, the brook-less channels, the falling snows, the angry tempest, the roar of the ravening wolves, but they are no more. It’s a glorious picture of unbroken sunshine gleaming pastures, pellucid waters, living fountains for sheep. That’s what we are. We’re sheep. The satisfaction of the sheep. But notice the strange change of metaphor. It’s the lamb who shepherds. It’s the lamb who shepherds. Isn’t that strange? The lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"So, the lamb is a shepherd. Lambs are shepherded, normally, but this lamb is different. He shepherds. But the fact that he’s a lamb, my Christian friend, identifies him even more closely with us. We are lambs and he’s a lamb. Just as we say we are men, but he’s the God-man. He’s one of us. And because he’s one of us he knows us. He knows our needs and because he’s the God man he could supply our needs.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;">"And the fact that he is called Lamb means that there is a continual remembrance of the saints of God of the fact that he is a lamb as slain, as we read in chapter 5. Stems the line of the tribe of Judah as a lamb and as slain. He never loses that capacity. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;">"And they know the joy of continual sustaining. They are led to fountains of waters, not a fountain but fountains, one succeeding another that is an infinite progression in joys and felicities from pasture to pasture from fountain to fountain, variety and diversity in heaven, and yet he feeds, he leads, he wipes away the tears. There’s no heaven without our Lord even though it should be filled with archangels, it would not be a place I would want to be if Jesus Christ were somewhere else. He’s the one to whom we owe our eternal salvation. And I love that final word. 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want, we say. This is the final fulfillment of that great text."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;">-- S. Lewis Johnson, "<a href="https://sljinstitute.net/revelation/an-interlude-of-encouragement/">An Interlude of Encouragement</a>", in his series on the book of Revelation. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i>Painting above is "Shepherd and Sheep" (c. 1880) by Anton Mauve, at the Cincinnati Art Museum. In the public domain.</i></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-87668436315425191772023-05-02T16:21:00.001-04:002023-05-02T16:21:24.443-04:00wrath to come<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7f1g4a-Jq9np5nVpJa8GsLI_smcWINJDST5CNhZ1FRDFYpSfefJSOT9fAh7C68SpyUVsZRPBKp2z4cxkGYNBayK_16X_k02GLACnJV4qw0Q0JTr8umSs5TDK9B4etg01Zx1Pkqu8-8lyrDxkUKI36YKn8b9BesNkwlm003wc-zQxWc_CQyPrnMbwMw/s754/finished%20work%20of%20Christ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="504" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7f1g4a-Jq9np5nVpJa8GsLI_smcWINJDST5CNhZ1FRDFYpSfefJSOT9fAh7C68SpyUVsZRPBKp2z4cxkGYNBayK_16X_k02GLACnJV4qw0Q0JTr8umSs5TDK9B4etg01Zx1Pkqu8-8lyrDxkUKI36YKn8b9BesNkwlm003wc-zQxWc_CQyPrnMbwMw/s320/finished%20work%20of%20Christ.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I'm reading through Francis Schaeffer's Bible study commentary on Romans chapters 1 through 8, published posthumously by Crossway in 1998. These talks were originally given in a student flat in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the 1960s. I was impressed with a point he made on Romans 2:6-8, which had to do with recognizing the wrath of God upon lost humanity. These days, when I find myself irritated by words and actions of people, I try to remember that they are made in the image of God. But Schaeffer adds another point, and that is to remember that those who continue in rebellion against God will face his fiery and eternal judgment. This truth should arouse our pity and concern for their lost condition. We should try to place ourselves in their situation. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;">"...who will render to every man according to his deeds." (Romans 2:6) </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"This is not talking about salvation by works. Rather, Paul is saying that we will be judged, not on the basis of what we profess to believe, but on the basis of a man's actions. We are dealing with a God who is truly there. Nice little professions of faith don't count with Him. What matters is what we really say and what we really do. We are dealing with a God who is really there and who responds to what we believe in fact."</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;">"To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath..." (2:7-8) </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"Here is the word 'wrath' again. It is God's wrath against people who all have a conscience, who see creation, who are rational beings, who understand moral principles, and yet who still disbelieve and disobey the truth. As Christians, we should be deeply concerned that the unsaved world is under the wrath of a holy God. We should not be able to think about this without some emotional reaction. Let's get it in our heads: People are lost. If we think of the unsaved world being under the wrath of God merely as an intellectual concept, remaining unstirred emotionally, we have already entered the door of dead orthodoxy. These people are my fellow humans, and they are under the wrath of God.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"Try for a moment to think of yourself as a nonbeliever, hearing this for the first time. The Holy Spirit is striving within you and suddenly you realize that you are under the wrath of God. Think how you would be on tip-toe, to see if God was going to do anything about it. Paul's great message, of course, is that God has done something about it. It is the theme he began back in 1:16: Mankind is under God's wrath, but there is salvation from that wrath."</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.crossway.org/articles/dead-guys-schaeffer-romans-5/">Here's more from Francis Schaeffer</a> on Romans. </span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-85281372822090433732023-04-29T08:07:00.003-04:002023-04-29T08:07:29.896-04:00daily devo with Bavinck<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpUXjRcrpIuVZp34s0FkgO1EHCmP9ugj7s76Smfhf2YnuJ3_-hJlRlK7tBvm3341aIUz4GpKuCfmlnrOEyg6nsEjZZh3l3y-dk26vt8hWUSrosGyv8_wm5Fb2krIvzRgtxsOHsz7sKZasGJFPwxwF2bVxZMrL_016_talU7u0w27KJWLWk8Naly-7etg/s695/DD%20wBavinck%20Mckim%20cover%20em.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpUXjRcrpIuVZp34s0FkgO1EHCmP9ugj7s76Smfhf2YnuJ3_-hJlRlK7tBvm3341aIUz4GpKuCfmlnrOEyg6nsEjZZh3l3y-dk26vt8hWUSrosGyv8_wm5Fb2krIvzRgtxsOHsz7sKZasGJFPwxwF2bVxZMrL_016_talU7u0w27KJWLWk8Naly-7etg/s320/DD%20wBavinck%20Mckim%20cover%20em.jpeg" width="230" /></a></div><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I am currently reading Donald McKim's new book, </span><i style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Daily Devotions with Herman Bavinck: Believing and Growing in Christian Faith</i><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> (P&R Publishing, 2023). Here's an excerpt, from day #6... </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #20124d;">The Heart and Core of Our Confession</span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;"><i>Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.</i> (Matt. 28:19)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><b>BASIC TO CHRISTIAN</b> faith is our belief in God as the divine Trinity. We confess one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe in one God in three persons. The Trinity is three distinct persons in the one divine being.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;">This belief emerged in the early Christian centuries. On the basis of the Old and New Testaments and consideration of the overall witness of the Scriptures, the church affirmed its faith in the triune God: God as three persons in unity. In the familiar Apostles' Creed, we confess that we believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as the three persons of the one God. The Trinity revealed to us is identical with the Trinity that is the very nature of God. We trust this God; we surrender ourselves to this God. This is the God of our life and our salvation. The church baptizes Christians in the triune name (Matt. 28:16-20).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Bavinck maintained that "the Article of Faith of the Holy Trinity is the heart and core of our confession, the distinguishing mark of the Christian religion, the [praise] and the consolation of all true Christ-believers." The doctrine of the Trinity is not abstract theological speculation. The Holy Trinity is the living God who is to be worshiped, adored, and served. The triune God is with us throughout our lives-in all situations-saving us, helping us, and bringing us comfort and hope. The three persons of the Trinity can be known; their work in the world, the church, and our lives can be recognized. God's presence with us--as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-is the deepest reality we know, in life and in death.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;">"Thus," wrote Bavinck, "the confession of the Trinity is the core and the main element of the entire Christian religion. Without it, neither creation, nor redemption, nor sanctification can be purely maintained." We cannot explain everything about the Trinity. But we can worship the triune God who is revealed as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. We praise "God in three persons, blessed Trinity"!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><u>Reflection Point</u>: Think of the three persons of the Trinity and what Scripture says about each of them. Contemplate the ways you are aware of the work of the Trinity in the world, the church, and your own life. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><b>The Divine Trinity</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>The church confesses... [that] God is above the world, distinct from it in essence, and yet with his whole being in it at the present time and nowhere, in no point of space and for no moment of time separated from it. He is both distant and near-highly exalted and at the same time deeply ingrained in all his creatures. He is our Creator, who, distinct from his being, brought us forth by his will. He is our Redeemer, who saves us, not by our works but by the riches of his grace. He is our Sanctifier, who dwells in us as in his temple. As a triune God, he is a God above and for and in us.</i> (Herman Bavinck)</span> </span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13;"><br /></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-90725187375077247382023-03-08T10:34:00.007-05:002023-03-08T10:35:58.796-05:00the model of past glory<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BFetmRvdiiNXHKPK61ZNoGLR09UjdCjMelFnJmbclPAlD-aBTFdSKLHJ3ZYdSBJHIwm8DQKDtBSd2W0yXZQYJFl5az7rpDePZawwiNzcwxgMUWczHG26-ECUt8ggVf5RpNYw1ZN9qrp7s8UpU6OwT2SDrRt0cAvN09TpyrW0-cjYWnYILLCcskmkpA/s800/jason-leung-unsplash-campfire.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="800" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BFetmRvdiiNXHKPK61ZNoGLR09UjdCjMelFnJmbclPAlD-aBTFdSKLHJ3ZYdSBJHIwm8DQKDtBSd2W0yXZQYJFl5az7rpDePZawwiNzcwxgMUWczHG26-ECUt8ggVf5RpNYw1ZN9qrp7s8UpU6OwT2SDrRt0cAvN09TpyrW0-cjYWnYILLCcskmkpA/w400-h375/jason-leung-unsplash-campfire.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God." (Revelation 3:1b-2 ESV) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;">"Deliver us Lord, from the formalities that do not have reality. We pray that we may truly have the kind of spiritual reality that we confess in our faith in Jesus Christ." (S. Lewis Johnson, prayer)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;">A group of us are studying through Jesus' words to the seven churches of Revelation (Rev chaps 2-3). We have found the messages given by Dr. Lewis Johnson back in the late-1980s at Believers Chapel (Dallas, TX) to be especially helpful. Following are some excerpts from his message regarding the church at Sardis: </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>"One of the things that the Christian church must contend with is the fact that it is offensive to the world when it is being true to the word of God. And really, as one of my old teachers used to like to say, 'It is a terrible thing when a church is content to cultivate inoffensiveness.' In other words, to try to be the kind of church that no one can really fault. Because if that is true, then we really are not giving the kind of testimony to Jesus Christ that we should. If there is one thing the Bible tells us, it is if we proclaim the cross, we proclaim that which is an offense to the natural man about us, and if live in the light of the Christian truth of the cross, we also evidently will be offensive to the world about us as well. So, when a church cultivates inoffensiveness, it is really doing the impossible, if it is honestly, and truly, and faithfully following the word of God.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>"That’s something that each of us should ask ourselves. We have a name as a Christian, as a believer, but is there vital spiritual life within us? That is the first thing which our Lord has to say to this church by way of complaint. We know that the Reformation, in the vitality of the discovery of the great truths, such as the justification by faith, before long lapsed into orthodox formality. Someone has said, 'The orthodox formality of denominationalism’s clanging Ecclesiasticism,' and we have had that down to our present day. The Reformation, what magnificent things happened then! The church was offensive, and as a result of being offensive, they were truly representing our Lord Jesus Christ, and many were responsive to it as the Holy Spirit worked.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>"[T]here are certain laws of the body as well as certain laws of the souls. And the law of the body is that our body gets cold during the night. That’s why during the night you have to pull up the cover. But the same thing is true of the soul. The soul, if there is not the constant fanning of the flames of the spiritual life, we get cold too. There’s the law of coldness that is a tendency within us, this cooling tendency. It is true of our spiritual lives if we do not spend time with the word of God, if we do not spend time in prayer, if we do not spend time in pondering the things of the word of God, we will become cool and ultimately cold.</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: medium;"><i>"So, stir up the gift of God which is in you. Our Lord’s words remind me of when he says that we are to be 'watchful, to strengthen, to remember, to hold fast, and repent.' How important that is. If you are neglecting prayer, you are growing cold. If you are neglecting the word of God, there is a cooling tendency that is characteristic of the Christian life. It always is true. Neglect the spiritual exercises, and coolness and coldness will inevitably come."</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: medium;">The message, "Sardis, the Model of Past Glory," <a href="https://sljinstitute.net/revelation/sardis-the-model-of-past-glory/">can be found here</a>. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Dr. Johnson's entire <a href="https://sljinstitute.net/category/revelation/">series on Revelation is here</a>. </span></p><p><br /></p><p><i style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Credit: the photo above is by Jason Leung on Unsplash.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span></p><p> </p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-7184508263461653392023-02-23T09:22:00.003-05:002023-02-23T09:22:41.377-05:00What to pray for others<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhip6OfKtrTU73BcK8n0n4Te4DePVQHbbnd60ksbrTQpEdM1yax05YqeqJ2YMLjWPTR17dOP3d5qTx2bEtZikdu6CPQmFmwDW-cr2jydfxc6b3lp40yYcUtnkJLCy54hKIz8d10ujjI65TltRY52TNvE_i6qInAhOKOYqnUWObleKOhP16l1RU7k3LPKw/s825/praying%20hands%20romans%20quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="825" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhip6OfKtrTU73BcK8n0n4Te4DePVQHbbnd60ksbrTQpEdM1yax05YqeqJ2YMLjWPTR17dOP3d5qTx2bEtZikdu6CPQmFmwDW-cr2jydfxc6b3lp40yYcUtnkJLCy54hKIz8d10ujjI65TltRY52TNvE_i6qInAhOKOYqnUWObleKOhP16l1RU7k3LPKw/w640-h424/praying%20hands%20romans%20quote.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: OptimusPrincepsSemiBold; font-size: 28.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 22.0pt;">What to pray for others<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><i><span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></i></span></span><i style="text-indent: -27pt;">Sometimes we are at a loss about what to pray for other people. Thankfully, God knows what they need, and the Holy Spirit is interceding, as well. But we can learn to move past our common prayers (like, "Lord, be with them," and "Lord, bless them") to include some of the things the Apostle Paul prayed for his fellow believers. Here are 18 requests, gleaned from Paul's prayers* in his NT epistles:</i><span style="text-indent: -27pt;"><i> </i></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Give thanks</span></u><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"> for God being at work in them for salvation and growth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Pray that they <u>would know God’s will</u> with all wisdom.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">That they would <u>walk worthy of</u> (live up to) their
calling.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For God to enable them to live a life <u>pleasing to him.</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">That they would <u>grow in the knowledge of the Lord.</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For God to <u>empower them</u> for every good work.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For <u>their sanctification</u> in the beauty of holiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">That <u>God would be glorified</u> in and through them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For <u>wisdom and understanding</u> in knowing God. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For the Spirit to cause them to <u>know their spiritual
blessings in Christ.</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">That they be <u>strengthened by the Spirit inwardly.</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">12.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For them to truly grasp and understand <u>the love of God.</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">13.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For their <u>love to abound more and more</u>, and with discernment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">14.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">That they would understand <u>the surpassing value of Jesus.</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">15.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For them to <u>bear the fruit of righteousness</u> through
Christ. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">16.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">That they would render <u>acceptable service</u> to God’s
people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">17.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For their deliverance <u>from the evil plans</u> of
unbelievers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">18.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">For them to have <u>boldness</u> in sharing the gospel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">*These requests are adapted
from Paul’s prayers in the following chapters of Scripture: Romans 1; 15; 1
Corinthians 1; Ephesians 1, 3, 6; Philippians 1; Colossians 1; 1 Thessalonians
1; 2 Thessalonians 1.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-85197897856169188192022-12-01T14:28:00.007-05:002022-12-03T13:13:38.322-05:00on visiting a liberal church<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmx_O2ZPo2J-i3KXpyCkw25V3ewLdeW0w9lHf_4pmcgB3Bwowpj1uEJrM5BbwS0cs037IzaD6uQaSLamXAskilzpk1Ea-Z4o5eiwv7ImVYBgL4h5gKvydRoDJQnT9tMxULAmdRVJveSCiRUws0DFSrCfCRJZbgGWz-8N2WsLJ3ag4hmZxGWAdA6YrPw/s750/be%20the%20church%20post.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="750" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmx_O2ZPo2J-i3KXpyCkw25V3ewLdeW0w9lHf_4pmcgB3Bwowpj1uEJrM5BbwS0cs037IzaD6uQaSLamXAskilzpk1Ea-Z4o5eiwv7ImVYBgL4h5gKvydRoDJQnT9tMxULAmdRVJveSCiRUws0DFSrCfCRJZbgGWz-8N2WsLJ3ag4hmZxGWAdA6YrPw/w640-h296/be%20the%20church%20post.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Earlier this year, because of a family obligation, I attended a service at a mainline denominational church. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">At the front of the church, next to the robed female minister wearing a colorful stole, was a large banner, headed with the words, "Be The Church." Historically, in this denomination the Ten Commandments would have likely been displayed, rather than these ten progressive values (see picture of banner above).</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">My first thought was, why did they feel the freedom to change and reorient God's commandments? Loving God dropped from #1 to #9. (It appears that even recycling is more important than loving God.) And I'm thinking the word "diversity" on this banner means something different than the biblical view of God's diverse creation. In another point, "forgive often" seems to give us a little more wiggle room than, say, "</span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt 6:12). </span><i style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">As helpful as these values might be for consumer or environmental ethics, they play fast and loose with God's holy, immutable law</i><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">The service itself was a mashup of Jesus' sayings, none of which would make anyone uncomfortable. There was no mention of judgment, no need for mercy or grace, no mention of the cross and empty tomb, no explanation of saving faith, or what repentance is, or what the work of Christ accomplished on our behalf. The liturgy was a loose string of Bible verses, all positive, designed to comfort but not convict. It was said that eternal life begins at physical birth. There was one mention of "follow Jesus," with no explanation of what that meant.</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i>My conclusion is that liberal Christianity is not really Christianity at all.</i> Augustine wrote, "If you believe what you like in the gospel and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe but yourself." This was a point well demonstrated by J. Gresham Machen in his classic work, <u>Christianity and Liberalism</u> (Macmillan, 1923). (This is one of those books that I think every Christian should read.) Machen, one-time professor at Princeton Seminary, and later founder of Westminster Seminary, wrote, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><span style="color: #274e13;">“The truth is that the life-purpose of Jesus discovered by modern liberalism is not the life purpose of the real Jesus, but merely represents those elements in the teaching of Jesus--isolated and misinterpreted--which happen to agree with the modern program. It is not Jesus, then, who is the real authority, but the modern principle by which the selection within Jesus' recorded teaching has been made. Certain isolated ethical principles of the Sermon on the Mount are accepted, not at all because they are teachings of Jesus, but because they agree with modern ideas.” (J. Gresham Machen, <u>Christianity and Liberalism</u>)</span></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Machen's conclusion was that liberalism was <i>not a variation of Christianity</i>, like say, Baptists and Presbyterians, who share differing views on baptism or church government. This was more radical -- dethroning the authority of God's revelation, denying our desperate need for salvation, and diminishing the person and work of Jesus as Lord and Savior. <i>In other words, despite the Christian jargon, it's not Christianity at all. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> </span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-45360073283231479072022-10-29T11:48:00.005-04:002022-10-29T11:50:44.234-04:00dismissing Jesus<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu92wj3r11f6FzrqgiyE4e-bvKB03fvs5UStYoTP8bSSUPUUTg9OwfMccKm0rqBy7Dwp20dqk3UOOURoF6kew3o16NwY1js_8hTIbXbZwTdVDePsx-gaJ6HZjwSyI3vE_Zx4Rjv9tnzKPPzq5-5QkLcikGd_rVRN0G2B0pRiRLxTzyM5IDb9sMGg1p3Q/s1040/Hunt_Light_of_the_World.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="576" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu92wj3r11f6FzrqgiyE4e-bvKB03fvs5UStYoTP8bSSUPUUTg9OwfMccKm0rqBy7Dwp20dqk3UOOURoF6kew3o16NwY1js_8hTIbXbZwTdVDePsx-gaJ6HZjwSyI3vE_Zx4Rjv9tnzKPPzq5-5QkLcikGd_rVRN0G2B0pRiRLxTzyM5IDb9sMGg1p3Q/w221-h400/Hunt_Light_of_the_World.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #660000;">"For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will." (Hebrews 2:2-4 ESV) </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i>People dismiss Jesus so lightly and casually. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Some are casually profane, using Jesus' name in a throwaway manner, similar to "G-dammit" or "OMG". Others quietly dismiss him by ignoring his claims and neglecting any serious consideration of who he is and what he came to do. Some people are very open and outspoken in rejecting his existence and his identity. Either way, people daily wave aside any serious thought about him. It's so casual, and very dismissive. <i>And very dangerous.</i> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Why is this so dangerous? The Bible is very clear that not <i>receiving Christ</i> (a biblical term for faith) is so serious as to deserve God's judgment and the eternal fires of hell. <i>Isn't that an over-reaction on God's part?</i> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Here are four considerations:</span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><b>1) To reject Jesus </b>is to <u>reject the only One who is able to rescue us</u> from ourselves and from the coming judgment. He alone has the goodness and authority to stand before God on our behalf. He alone has the power to save us. He alone is able to bear our guilt and sin and to take it away (John 1:29). Our biggest barrier to knowing God is our own unrighteousness. Most of us think deep down inside that we are good people. And many religious founders have given us ways to climb the ladder of our goodness to reach God. But only Jesus sees us clearly from God's perspective, and he came down from heaven to bring us salvation. We in ourselves do not have the goodness necessary to obtain eternal life. In Christ we receive the life and forgiveness that no one else can provide for us: <i>"And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved"</i> (Acts 4:12). </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><b>2) To dismiss Jesus</b> is to <u>reject God the Father</u>, the One who sent his Son into the world. Jesus spoke often of "Him who sent me..." (Jn 12:44-45; cf. John 4:34; 5:24, 30; 6:38f; 7:33; 9:4; 12:44f; 15:21; 16:5). There is an eternal connection between God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. To receive one is to receive the other (Matt 10:40). <i>Conversely, to reject one is to reject the other.</i> To wave aside Jesus is to spurn the love and kindness of the Father in providing for us such a wonderful Savior. Further, it is to reject the character and attributes (qualities) of the Father which we see in Jesus, who is the true Image of God. "He who has seen me has seen the Father..." (John 14:9-10). So, to reject Jesus is to reject the kindness and goodness of God. </span></p><p><b style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">3) To reject Jesus</b><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> is to </span><u style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">reject God's purpose for us</u><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> as human beings. We were created in the image of God in order to reflect the goodness and glory of God in his universe. Our sin fractured that image. </span><i style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">In Jesus, the true image of God, we see God's design for the human race</i><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">, God's intended purpose for us. To receive Christ is to begin a transformation into his character, a shaping of the nature of our eternal destiny. Jesus is the firstborn of many sons (Rom 8:29). So, to reject him is to say </span><i style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">we have no desire for that future</i><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">, that we will not have that destiny for ourselves. So, we reject God's purpose for us and the possibility of a glorious future. In the Gospel of Luke, we read, "...but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves..." (Luke 7:30). </span></p><p><b style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">4) To keep dismissing Jesus</b><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> is to be </span><u style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">resisting the Holy Spirit</u><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> who came to testify of the truth of the gospel, and to convict us to come to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation. The Father and Son have sent the Holy Spirit into the world to call us, to draw us, and to convict us that we need the Lord (Jn 16). He comes to impress upon us the truth about God and about ourselves. To resist this, and to keep resisting, is </span><i style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">to close the door on eternal salvation</i><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> (Matt 12:31-33). The first Christian martyr, Stephen, said to the respectable crowd (about to kill him), "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51). </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i>To dismiss Jesus is no light thing.</i> Paying no attention to his words will be disastrous for you. It is a personal rejection, and involves rejecting God himself, his love and character, salvation and forgiveness, the Lord's good purpose for us, the Holy Spirit, and any hope of a glorious destiny. <i>All of this is wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ.</i> To dismiss this One, this Jesus, with a wave of the hand is to reject not only the Triune God, but also, every good thing we could possibly hope for. It is a personal insult to the greatest Being, the Creator of the universe, and our only hope for salvation. Jesus portrayed this in a parable:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, 'Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.' But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them." (Matthew 22:2-6 ESV)</i></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i>What would the king then do?</i> Go to Matthew 22 and read the rest of the parable. Then keep reading the gospels and ask God if these words are true. It is critically important to pay attention to God's invitation, and to consider the claims of Jesus Christ seriously. What you do with Jesus will determine your eternal destiny. As the author of Hebrews wrote, "how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">-------------- </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i>Image credit: above is "The Light of the World," painted by William Holden Hunt, ca 1851-56. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-10424026720290921802022-08-12T10:34:00.007-04:002022-08-12T10:37:36.904-04:00the Messiah and nature<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8-vul1XimS21EJ8U1ezN-14zoJ8NLn-vvn0YhnPkEcNicQ-5Sk3u1BmcOgrkNHlbPaELMAQvwR1lcJHNIX4NlU0n8jruzlh4tWtBIW0MnjfnOV-1B4rlfgC0JVRPZsrwaHJV3G_iLCYSq_SMiv-XpCTJWLXAtIIhevH0yUlx7XwrKR4uc8fhX28MbvA/s1200/hicks%20peaceable.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1200" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8-vul1XimS21EJ8U1ezN-14zoJ8NLn-vvn0YhnPkEcNicQ-5Sk3u1BmcOgrkNHlbPaELMAQvwR1lcJHNIX4NlU0n8jruzlh4tWtBIW0MnjfnOV-1B4rlfgC0JVRPZsrwaHJV3G_iLCYSq_SMiv-XpCTJWLXAtIIhevH0yUlx7XwrKR4uc8fhX28MbvA/w400-h301/hicks%20peaceable.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"...those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy (Psalm 65:8 ESV)</span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>In retirement I have a bit more time to observe nature, identify bird songs, and photograph trees and flowers. I'm even finding mushrooms to be fascinating, but I am not experimenting with their edibility! Each day I realize something of the goodness and beauty of the world that God created, even though now it is marred by sin and death. </i></span></p><p><b style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">READING PSALM 65.</b><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> This psalm can be divided into three sections. First, we should praise God, for he has atoned for sin and reconciled us to himself forever (vv 1-4). Secondly, the global work of God's righteousness will bring about redemption for the nations, resulting in great joy (vv 5-8). Thirdly, this will culminate with blessings upon all creation, again, resulting in joyful praise (vv 9-13), "...they shout and sing together for joy" (65:13). There is a movement in this psalm from the redemption of the individual to the saving of nations, and then on to a new blessed creation. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>THE MESSIAH AND NATURE.</b> We see this in Isaiah, as well. The Messiah, the "Branch" will come (Isa 11:1-5) and his work will restore nature, making it a "peaceable kingdom" (11:6-9). The atoning work of Messiah (Isa 53) will be followed by a new creation (Isa 65). The Apostle Paul says that all of creation groans and longs to be set free when the children of God are revealed in glory (Rom 8:18-25). It's no wonder then that the first century observers of Jesus were amazed, not just by his healing miracles, but also by his nature miracles. The Messiah would be the One to restore the created order. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>WAVES AND WHEAT.</b> The statement, "...who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples..." (v. 7) is glimpsed in Jesus' calming of the sea (Matt 8:24-27). "Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?'" Also, the crowds who ate of the multiplied loaves and fishes at hand of Jesus, may well have reflected upon this: "...the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy" (Ps 65:13). </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>A NEW WORLD COMING.</b> The Apostle Peter wrote, "...according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Pet 3:13). Notice that not only will new heavens come, but also a new earth. Mankind's righteous dominion over a glorious and perfect world will come about at last (Gen 1:26; 2:8, 15). <i>Though our primary calling right now is to proclaim Christ to the nations, it is good to take time to observe and enjoy the beauty of his created world, for it gives us a glimpse of what is to come. </i> </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana; font-size: small;">Credits. Image above is the "Peaceable Kingdom", oil painting on canvas, by Edward Hicks (c. 1826--1830). Hicks was a Quaker preacher who painted over sixty versions on the theme of God's kingdom, based on Isaiah chapters 11 and 65. </span></p><p><br /></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-57596172731383753342022-07-23T19:06:00.002-04:002022-07-23T19:06:12.205-04:00on the field of battle<p><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQdbXLe1gV9BSJp2XAhhmA-UA068SNINwZxeqceslJ1idF_M3Ct2gOl_b66Q3SSeLVXg7dbpQOKIaCCRf3jdcUe9GL_sjMJckaUeSgQAWUEmBHta4mAhjIIVqFG4ms6mP-_J_A8MgHGOrLjMeoxqA3N87ybKcZZ8D6LSI_EwdEf9RiiZCQz-EKkXPr_g/s750/cedar%20mountain%20em.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="750" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQdbXLe1gV9BSJp2XAhhmA-UA068SNINwZxeqceslJ1idF_M3Ct2gOl_b66Q3SSeLVXg7dbpQOKIaCCRf3jdcUe9GL_sjMJckaUeSgQAWUEmBHta4mAhjIIVqFG4ms6mP-_J_A8MgHGOrLjMeoxqA3N87ybKcZZ8D6LSI_EwdEf9RiiZCQz-EKkXPr_g/w400-h251/cedar%20mountain%20em.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;"><br /><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p><i style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;">For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. </i><span style="color: #660000; font-family: verdana;">(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ESV) </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">This week I toured the Cedar Mountain Battlefield with a couple of friends who love history. As we walked about the area, noting the stone markers where Jackson's company was, where the artillery batteries were, and where the Union troops from Wisconsin marched, I was struck by the loss -- the human suffering and sacrifice that took place on both sides of the battle. This was the first occasion in which Clara Barton served as a nurse on the front lines of battle. About 3900 men were injured or died that day. Many of the injured would later die, as well. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">It's easy today to be simplistic about history, cancelling entire groups of people we think were in the wrong. Aldous Huxley once wrote, "The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human." As I strolled the battlefield, now dotted with wildflowers, I thought of the loss of lives on that very ground. We do not know all the various motives of the soldiers on the field of battle. Many of the Union soldiers were likely fighting for an end to slavery in the south. It was a just cause. The boys from Wisconsin were a long way from home, and many would never return to their families. However, the northern general, John Pope, occupying the town of Culpeper, had enacted harsh wartime laws upon the civilians of Culpeper, treating them as traitors to be dealt with cruelly. The local Confederates -- the vast majority of whom never owned slaves -- were likely fighting for their families and homes in what they saw as an unjust invasion of their land. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">The lessons of history can be complex -- and there are many unanswered questions -- but there is one God who guides the course of human history to its proper end (Isa 41:4; Eph 1:10-12). We must never forget, though, that it is a <i>human</i> history, and the value of each <i>human</i> life must be felt. Those who fought on that field were real people, and they should be remembered for their courage and sacrifice. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">In 1943 poet T. S. Eliot published a poem about soldiers from India and Britain who fought together, and were buried, in South Africa. Here's an excerpt... </span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>A man's destination is his own village, </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>His own fire, and his wife's cooking; </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>To sit in front of his own door at sunset </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>And see his grandson, and his neighbor's grandson </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Playing in the dust together. </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>A man's destination is not his destiny, </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Every country is home to one man </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>And exile to another. Where a man dies bravely </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>At one with his destiny, that soil is his. </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Let his village remember. </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Let those who go home tell the same story of you: </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Of action with a common purpose, action </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>None the less fruitful if neither you nor we </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>Know, until the judgment after death, </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;"><i>What is the fruit of action. </i></span></div></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: verdana;">-- T. S. Eliot, from "To the Indians who died in South Africa" (1943).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuyYc6qQ7w8VZ-BmQgYN9AA1gTN7hFXTz1FV60i_foQqit1K4zzQXBuBRnPVrVUdzJWeTPZHkcabnecwGd3M8UrmdHelOstWbsMTgUsTdFPyLjIs5tfKOIMo9ZDd-yB5BSfsoaSyRS4TdZzPyEKugq52YXb9Iy93IoPJjkH0THVls-sTHX2m-KbBLjAA/s650/cedar%20mtn%20flowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="650" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuyYc6qQ7w8VZ-BmQgYN9AA1gTN7hFXTz1FV60i_foQqit1K4zzQXBuBRnPVrVUdzJWeTPZHkcabnecwGd3M8UrmdHelOstWbsMTgUsTdFPyLjIs5tfKOIMo9ZDd-yB5BSfsoaSyRS4TdZzPyEKugq52YXb9Iy93IoPJjkH0THVls-sTHX2m-KbBLjAA/w400-h243/cedar%20mtn%20flowers.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><i><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo at top is of a Confederate cannon placement near Culpeper, VA, with Cedar Mountain in the background. Bottom, wildflowers on the field of battle. </span></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-82521604453340486712022-07-17T15:13:00.002-04:002022-07-17T15:13:12.463-04:00stott on inspiration<p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0yBbek-8lXtOhyD9YGhIAqQZ6zv_oqru1Lgfgl_qGQniGpfJKvTWfiZ2rxCH_PNc_jdQpMd5ksoCZjBw47UHp1CLrgVRYjZZ8CC-AeB-DB0yldbYbzFf3Lybxwg3scvfjlHIOoXkY8S-Zh5aqwLBHGh2Of6xC_-EEkB19ObfmT9vmDTB6xxBqpDNLg/s545/stott%20early%20years.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0yBbek-8lXtOhyD9YGhIAqQZ6zv_oqru1Lgfgl_qGQniGpfJKvTWfiZ2rxCH_PNc_jdQpMd5ksoCZjBw47UHp1CLrgVRYjZZ8CC-AeB-DB0yldbYbzFf3Lybxwg3scvfjlHIOoXkY8S-Zh5aqwLBHGh2Of6xC_-EEkB19ObfmT9vmDTB6xxBqpDNLg/s320/stott%20early%20years.jpg" width="220" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">I am finishing up the first volume of the Dudley-Smith's excellent biography of John R. W. Stott. After his conversion as a teenager, Stott embraced an evangelical view of Christianity, which was tested in his years at Cambridge. He and Billy Graham conversed about the challenges of believing in the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures in light of modern scholarship. </span><p></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">After much reflection, Stott held firm in his conclusion, in "both the rightness and the reasonableness of submitting to the authority of Scripture." He later wrote, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"First, to accept the authority of the Bible is a Christian thing to do. It is neither a religious eccentricity, nor a case of discreditable obscurantism, but the good sense of Christian faith and humility. It is essentially 'Christian' because it is what Christ himself requires of us. The traditional view of Scripture (that it is God's word written) may be called the 'Christian' view precisely because it is Christ's view."</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"...the ultimate issue in the question of authority concerns the Lordship of Christ. 'You call me "Teacher" and "Lord",' he said, 'and rightly so, for that is what I am' (John 13:13). If Jesus Christ is truly our teacher and our Lord, we are under both his instruction and his authority. We must therefore bring our mind into subjection to him as our teacher and our will into subjection to him as our Lord. We have no liberty to disagree with him or to disobey him. So we bow to the authority of Scripture because we bow to the authority of Christ." </i></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">-- From <i>John Stott: The Making of a Leader: A Biography of the Early Years, by Timothy Dudley-Smith</i> (IVP Books, 1999)</span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-20510241128052045042022-06-29T20:10:00.007-04:002022-06-29T20:39:36.874-04:00on the free exercise of religion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOobBBUB7qiJQN6LZKPBjEqQsR6YnpyW9ICKy3vun3wFFINCCQ_7fjJQo8N1AyV3ZSOVS_8wzkiliOgEBvEUmOMQrPNrD7yk72765nwTsRX0j6uN7YnpKs7yPYeHKtBfTlfXxpLXkDKOAiLWH_E32TvGgDiUjW0qWisUJ3RD2M472Vgjto7dpV19Pebg/s649/christianity%20considered%20john%20frame.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="502" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOobBBUB7qiJQN6LZKPBjEqQsR6YnpyW9ICKy3vun3wFFINCCQ_7fjJQo8N1AyV3ZSOVS_8wzkiliOgEBvEUmOMQrPNrD7yk72765nwTsRX0j6uN7YnpKs7yPYeHKtBfTlfXxpLXkDKOAiLWH_E32TvGgDiUjW0qWisUJ3RD2M472Vgjto7dpV19Pebg/s320/christianity%20considered%20john%20frame.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">In my own reading it seemed timely to me that I came upon a section in an apologetic book which dealt with the separation of church and state as commonly (mis)understood today. The author is Dr. John Frame, retired professor of systematic theology and philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando. Here are a few highlights... </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d;">The Christian, as opposed to the secularist, comes to realize we are accountable to a law higher than, and outside of, ourselves. Namely, </span><i><span style="color: #274e13;">"the source of morality is greater than our family, our clan, even our church. Greater than our present loyalty, but not greater than loyalty itself. Morality is grounded in a higher loyalty, and a higher love."</span></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Christians do not abandon the use of reason, but rather they reject purely autonomous reason: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>"Only Christianity, abandoning autonomy for trust in God’s revelation, presents a suitable account of both the powers and limitations of reason, neither deifying nor denying our rational faculty."</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d;">On the <u>separation of church and state</u>: </span><i><span style="color: #274e13;">"This clause does not forbid religious expression in government, or government support of such expression. It does not even forbid established churches within the new nation, except at the federal level. At the time, there were established churches in the states. Part of the purpose of this amendment was to keep the federal government from competing with those state churches or interfering with them. In broadening this provision, courts have cited Jefferson’s language of the 'wall of separation' between church and state. However, this phrase appears in Jefferson’s writings, not in any official government document. The phrase comes from Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, replying to their letter of 1801. The letter assures them that their opinions will not be scrutinized by the federal government. So, the 'wall of separation' is to protect the church from the state, not the other way around. So, although courts have interpreted it differently, there is nothing in the First Amendment that requires government officials to be entirely secular in the conduct of their duties." </span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d;">On the <u>free exercise of religion</u>. Frame writes, </span><i><span style="color: #274e13;">"...the amendment protects the 'free exercise' of religion. Nothing in the Constitution gives anyone the right to 'freedom from religion,' the right not to be offended by religious expression. But in recent years the federal government has become more and more intrusive into the practice of religious believers." </span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Freedom of religion means <u>more than freedom to worship</u>: </span><i><span style="color: #274e13;">"...that certainly was not the meaning of 'free exercise' when the Constitution was written. ...religion is not limited to what we do in the church building. It is emphatically what we do after the service is ended. Our Puritan fathers understood this, and certainly the writers of the Constitution. That is, indeed, the case for all religions, not just Christianity. Every preacher tells his flock that they should practice their faith wherever they go, that they should not limit it to their time in public worship."</span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #20124d;">-- Excerpts are taken from</span></span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Considered-Guide-Skeptics-Seekers/dp/1683590864/">Christianity Considered: A Guide for Skeptics and Seekers</a></i> (Lexham Press, 2018), by John M. Frame. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448098771845236542.post-59598163120910407092022-05-27T15:37:00.006-04:002022-05-27T15:39:51.329-04:00danger and duty in studying science<p> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4YiK3lPKUneT2lxEyI311FYx5UAunwDF0s8t6CBg69MwBdwepO6z_L3NrVVAwaXADvfprKhGnNU6_R5LMNtsh8n7TVJYoCq9XIf4gd8IeT-AE3g9exOYtj33Yo8j00XumO3zbQPV3na_PSpyA-5Ef7NV89Oss7CjzDxJ6lg1R9jDSpfs2VhgF5wwAw/s684/kuyper%20and%20book.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="684" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4YiK3lPKUneT2lxEyI311FYx5UAunwDF0s8t6CBg69MwBdwepO6z_L3NrVVAwaXADvfprKhGnNU6_R5LMNtsh8n7TVJYoCq9XIf4gd8IeT-AE3g9exOYtj33Yo8j00XumO3zbQPV3na_PSpyA-5Ef7NV89Oss7CjzDxJ6lg1R9jDSpfs2VhgF5wwAw/w400-h300/kuyper%20and%20book.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">I'm currently reading <i>Wisdom and Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art</i> (Christian's Library Press; English translation, 2011) by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). Kuyper was a Dutch Reformed theologian, founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, who also served as the prime minister of Holland from 1901 to 1905. Based upon his view of common grace he demonstrates that, despite the dangers inherent in scientific and artistic studies, Christians are called to participate and dignify these disciplines that God has given graciously to be shared by all humanity. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">In part one, Kuyper is arguing for Christians to maintain their work in the sciences without succumbing to materialism (philosophical naturalism) in their worldview and approach. He observes that the western world has been </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"led to the increasing materializing of all science, feeding the false notion that spiritual life arose from material causes."</span></span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> Below are some excerpts taken from this section. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">On the <u>nature of the observer,</u> Kuyper holds that </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"...we must boldly maintain the twofold nature of the terrain of investigation. On the one hand, there is a terrain of external things, where everything depends on seeing and hearing, weighing and measuring. On the other hand, there is a terrain of invisible, spiritual things, where our own internal spirit deserves the right of first action and where the outwardly observable can and may function only as a servant."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">The <u>true scientist</u>, aware of his own consciousness, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"cannot help but inquire about the origin, the coherence, and the destiny of things, whereas observation neither can nor does teach us anything about these."</span></span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> His mind cannot free itself of the </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"three principial questions about which the spirit within us always muses again and again: From where? How? And to what end?"</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">But for the <u>scientist who was committed to a purely materialist philosophy</u>, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"There was no soul any longer; there was no God any longer. There was nothing more than matter and manifestations of matter. This resulted in the complete materialization of all science. This is the main feature that characterizes all of modern science." And such a person "closets himself within his self-sufficient thinking so that he places God outside his field of vision..."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Kuyper argues, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"You must perceive and acknowledge that your thinking also belongs to that spiritual life. You must see clearly that because of this, the researching person cannot remain satisfied with observing, measuring, and weighing." And, "The scientific researcher who takes his starting point in the world around him, and stakes his honor on grasping for neutral objectivity, is doomed by his very method to seeing the independent existence of his own ego finally perish." He will end up "ultimately idolizing the material."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">Believers, however, <u>must not abandon the sciences</u>, and </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"retreat to their ecclesiastical corner and, satisfied with simply having faith, abandon the building of the temple of science to unbelievers, as though science does not concern them. This they may not do, because the scientific enterprise is not an exercise in human pride but rather a duty God has laid upon us." ... "God’s honor requires the human spirit to probe the entire complexity of what has been created, in order to discover God’s majesty and wisdom and to express those in human thoughts with human language."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"><u>Neither does the Christian adopt a naturalistic view</u> of the world: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"The inevitable result is that gradually his faith begins to yield to his scientific view, and without noticing it, he slips into the unbelieving mode of viewing the world."</span></span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> We cannot live, and observe, and study, as those who think they live in a closed universe. Kuyper says, </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"The whole creation is nothing but the visible curtain behind which radiates the exalted working of this divine thinking."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">We should, as believers, <u>pursue excellence and advancement</u> in scientific studies: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"There is only one means for preventing this, one that requires Christian thinkers to establish a university-level movement, and by means of that academic movement manifest a different mode of perceiving and thinking, reproducing it among people who pursue these university studies."</span></span><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;"> If we do not, then we are abdicating our role as God's children who have been given dominion over the earth. </span></p><p><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: verdana;">In <u>concluding the section on science</u>, Kuyper writes: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;">"In the nature of the case, the general mentality among the populace receives its imprint from the academics. The universities stipulate the direction of thought for people of influence. From the universities this mode of thinking is reproduced among politicians, lawyers, physicians, teachers, and writers. By means of such influence that mode of thinking is carried over into the press, to secondary and elementary schools, and to the network of our bureaucratic officials. If that university life and the influence it produces on the populace remain exclusively in the hands of unbelievers, then public opinion will ultimately be turned entirely in that direction, also morally and religiously, and will have a most injurious effect in our Christian circles as well."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br /></span></span></p>Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13880758087711821309noreply@blogger.com0