Photizo

All For Your Glory

2012-01-21T08:27:00.002Z

Self-Centred Self-Esteem

2012-01-20T21:36:00.000Z

"This is the first time I've heard someone say that the concept of self esteem is self-centred." - my tutor.

It's not very fun being the one dissenting opinion in a class that rates self-esteem highly. "Just believe in yourself." "Have faith in yourself otherwise no one will."

"I guess I just don't want my students to focus on themselves. I want them to look outside of themselves and put others first. I don't want them to give themselves a pat on the back for being special and unique. That's not gonna hold up when they hit a major crisis."

It's not that I want my students to look down on themselves. In fact, I don't want them to be looking at themselves at all. When I look at what's inside of me, I feel like despairing. There's so much that needs work and so much that is desperately far from what it should be. So I don't look in. I look up—at the one who is transforming me to be more like himself. When you can gaze at something so beautiful, why focus on the sin within?

Do people go to the Grand Canyon to increase their self-esteem? Probably not. This is, at least, a hint that the deepest joys in life come not from savoring the self, but from seeing splendor. And in the end even the Grand Canyon will not do. We were made to enjoy God... In the cross of Christ, God rescues us from the house of mirrors and leads us out to the mountains and canyons of his majesty.

John Piper, The Goal of God's Love

A part of me aches for people to see this. You are not the centre of God's plan. God is. Do you know how unbelievably liberating this is? To know that you do not carry the weight of God's plan for your life? God does. And he will bring it to completion, with or without your self motivational speeches. Is his plan good? Maybe not in the eyes of this twisted world. But, beloved, he loves you. Nothing will come to you that he has not first suffered. You may not experience earthly comfort, but you will know his love. Can such a thing be construed as sacrifice? Or undeserved grace?

May the love of Jesus fill me,
As the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self abasing,
This is victory "

Repost of Denise Lim's cracking blog post.

Children Are An Augustinian Experience

2012-01-20T09:25:00.000Z

"Anyone who has ever had children will know that it is a most Augustinian experience. Few if any parents of a three month old find Pelagius and his ilk to be particularly persuasive on the matter of human nature. Indeed, it is very hard not to believe in original sin at 3 am in the wee small hours when your child is screaming his lungs out and there is nothing - no food, no toy, no activity, no person - which can stop him. Babies are the most brutally honest of human beings: it really is all about them; and they make it very clear that they both believe that and practice such with a vengeance.

Infants are, in fact, the very embodiment of self-love. They want their immediate needs satisfied and they care nothing for anything or anybody else. Arguably, the process of growing up, of education in the broadest (and oldest) sense of the word, is the means by which the child comes to curb this utter self-centredness through its need to be part of wider society."

Carl Trueman, Ref 21

Great Likeness To Jesus

2012-01-19T09:00:00.000Z

"It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy Christian* is an awful weapon in the hand of God."

Robert Murray M'Cheyne
*Originally M'Cheyne wrote "pastor", as he was speaking to such. However the truth stands true for all Christians.

Jesus Vs Religion

2012-01-12T06:22:00.004Z

My brother sent this to me last night:

Dressed In Beauty Not My Own

2012-01-10T19:36:00.001Z

"When I stand before the throne,

Dressed in beauty not my own,

When I see Thee as Thou art,

Love Thee with unsinning heart,

Then, Lord, shall I fully know —

Not till then — how much I owe."

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

No Other Name & The Love Of The Saviour

2012-01-08T15:29:00.001Z

A German song translated into English, there's an unusual turn of events.

I also really like this song: (both songs by the Outbreak Band)

The Irony Of The Christian Christmas

2011-12-22T21:22:00.001Z

"The irony of the Christian Christmas is that the Christ child comes not because of any need of his own or any desire to fulfill a selfish or inwardly directed want; this child, the child in the manger, considers it not robbery to be equal with God and yet humbles himself by taking the form of a servant in order to be obedient even to death on the cross. All of this is done for those who not only did not deserve it but who despise the very thought of grace. For the strong and the self-sufficient to be shown their need and to be delivered therefrom by a nobody who begins life in a manger and ends it on a cross is a profound insult to everything we hold dear. The world looks on - now as then - and see this all as so much childishness; the tragedy, of course, is that it is the unsuspecting world which is truly childish."

Carl Trueman, Ref 21.

Anti-Santy Ranty

2011-12-21T20:51:00.002Z

Ht: Australian Glen

The Loveliness of God In Giving Us Christ

2011-11-27T12:46:00.001Z

“Then rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might dare to die. But God proves His love to us for, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (vv.7-8)

(Part 1)

How lovely is our God who works such a complete rescue for us in Christ. On Golgotha Christ was bruised and beaten by the Father so that we would know His tender mercy and grace. Jesus took every sin and all the sinfulness of all those who would ever believe in Him. Every sin from all believers. He took them all and He paid for them. There is no more price to pray if you are in Christ. You will never, ever face a wrathful Father, never be damned for any of your sins. No matter how evil they are. For Christ has drunk the cup of God’s wrath empty for all those who trust Him. There is not one drop left.

What a wonderful gift? How can you have it? Not through your works and merit! Your happiness cannot be found in your identity as a moral superman, and neither can your salvation. Rather this salvation is all yours in Christ, if you will have Him. He is yours if you will believe in Him. Verse 1 “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We can only have Christ by faith. When someone turns to Christ he is clothed with Christ. Through faith he is united to Christ and receives all that is Christ’s. He receives Christ as His righteousness. His perfect life, obedient to the Father at all times, is credited to us. In return through faith we see that Christ received all that was ours at Golgotha. Our sin. Our shame. Our guilt. Our punishment. All that was ours became His.

Please don’t think this isn’t practical. These truths change lives. What does God think of you right now? If you are in Christ then God looks at you and sees none other than Christ. He sees you and it is not as if you had never sinned, but rather as if you were Christ. He looks at us and cries out with joy “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased!” And nothing can change this. Not your pride. Not your self-obsession. Not your cold heart. Not the porn that you looked at this week. He saved you without your works through faith in Christ and so will He keep you. Your works will never separate you from His love to you in Christ. He loves you as He loves His first-born Son. Nothing will ever change this.

No one can make us happier than God. Nowhere can we see this any clearer than in the gospel of grace. Therefore let us preach this good news to ourselves every day. For God has given us everything that we need that we would not find our joy in the dirt of this world but would find Him to be pure joy, all joys excelling.

The Rays Of Gospel Sunshine

2011-11-26T20:10:00.001Z

(Part 1)

So how can we believe that God is our only source of perfect joy? How can it sink into our heads and hearts that the difference between sin and God is like that between dog dirt and chocolate cookies.

In Germany I am often teased about the poor English weather, as if Germany was the source of sun tans and white beaches. Actually German winters are very cold, and thus it is with great joy that I sit on my balcony in the spring for the first time in the new year. It is amazing to feel the sun’s warmth on my face again for the first time in months, it is only as the sun’s rays fall on me that I remember how good it is to sit in beautiful weather. Before hand I might have had a vague notion of what good weather was, but nothing concrete.

So it is too with us and God. We may have a vague notion that God is good, but there will be no living conviction and passion behind this until we have had our hearts warmed again by the Holy Spirit through the sunshine of the gospel. The gospel really isn’t just the beginners’ welcome package for non Christians. It is our life and joy; the sunshine that warms us with the love of God.

Yet as the first rays of the gospel fall upon us we realise, too, how cold everything was beforehand. Only in gospel light do we see the morbid frost that lies on all without Christ. However just because it is so brutally cold, doesn’t mean it is not true. No man disbelieves his doctor just because he doesn’t want to hear that he has cancer when the doctor hands him his medical results. And God tells us we all have something much worse than cancer.

Verse 8 says, “God, however, proves His love to us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Verse 10, “For when we were still enemies, we were reconciled to God.” Every single person alive on this planet is an enemy of God, a sinner, from the moment of his conception. Every one of us has rebelled against the God who has loved us and created us. In God’s eyes we are all guilty of high-treason. Even worse we were “without strength” (v. 6) to find our way back to God. We were “godless” (v.6). In short everyone of us has debts with God that we will have to pay. Debts that we can never ever pay. We are guilty and under the wrath of God.

Often we pretend that sin isn’t so bad. It doesn’t carry any consequences and God doesn’t take it very seriously. But we should shudder in awe to know that our loving God thought it right and good to create a hell, where the agony of those there never ends. Why? Because of sin. Thinking lightly of sin is spiritual suicidal. What is keeping us from hell right now is not our loveliness, but the mercy and loveliness of God in Christ.

God: An Open Treasure Chest In Christ

2011-11-26T10:57:00.001Z

(Part 1)
If you discover God to be such a source of joy, that even troubles and sorrows cannot wash away your happiness in Him, then you will find Him even more delightful than before. "Not only that, but we rejoice in God" (v.11)

We have not been created for the created. Rather we exist for Him who conquers suffering, explodes the fear of death and tramples the wrath of God away from us. We exist for none other than God. Apart from Him there is no pure joy. There are shadows of His reality, weak rays that come from his majestic sunshine. Yet alone in Him is pure joy for us. It is far better to have God and sickness than healthy and hell-bound.

Everyone knows Ned Flanders. Some of my flat mates think he is a normal Christian, which does little for our image. However the bigger problem that we have is not that people think we are like Ned, but that we often tend to believe in Ned's god. A power-drunk tyrant bent upon squashing the last iota of joy out of us, that we may share in his misery and boredom. Please, if this god sounds familiar to you than flush him down the toilet, where all excrement belongs. For the real God is vastly different; Father, Son and Spirit have known and enjoyed each other since before time began. Their joy knows no bounds. God is a perfectly exuberant and joyful God and nothing can dampen His pleasure. In His presence is infinite joy and at His right hand pleasures forever more. (Psalm 16: 11)

This is the God that we rejoice in through our Lord Jesus. In Jesus has become an open treasure chest for us. The wealth and treasure of His love He has lavished upon us through His Holy Spirit. Verse 5; "This hope does not disappoint, for the love of God has been poured out in our hearts, through the Holy Spirt who has been given us." Do you see what God has done for our delight? He has poured out His Holy Spirit in our hearts; not in scanty drops but in flooding abundance. We did nothing to receive this; it is His free gift of love to us. By His Holy Spirit the love of God lives in us.

The theologian Jonathan Edwards described this perfectly when he commented, "God created us to communicate the fullness of His joy to us." Surely this is the thought behind Psalm 37: 4. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart!" Delight yourself in God and you shall want none other than God. Unlike every other thing we make an idol of, God can give us what we so desperately desire; Himself. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give Himself to you.

By the way, this is why sin is so appealing to you. Why Bible reading and prayer so difficult is. Because you don't think that they can do anything for your joy except dampen it. Like thirsty morons we drink the salty water of sin and convince ourselves that it tastes good, certainly far better than the fresh living water of the Holy Spirit.

Pure Joy In Future Hope And Present Sufferings

2011-11-20T19:24:00.001Z

(Part 1 here)

Romans 5 sings to us of a threefold ultimate joy that God gifts to us. Joy in the future, joy in suffering and joy in God.

V.2 “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God”

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God may sound a little nauseous to some of us. Like, “Oh wooo, a week of pure maths lessons!” But the glory of God is not deathly boring like maths lessons at school. [Apologies to Dom Orchard and all other maths lovers.] This is the hope of a future with God! A future spent in intimate fellowship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. An eternity in which we shall behold God, and all death, darkness and despair shall be forever banished from us. A future where the sun shall not shine for it will be replaced by the bright beams of the Son.

Have you ever seen something so wonderful it made you gasp with awe. A movie, a sunset, a girlfriend? In Revelation 7: 10-11 we read that Christians in heaven sing to God. The question is; are they singing because an angel is holding a machine gun to their heads or because they are face to face with God Almighty, and, so that their hearts do not explode in adulterated joy, they erupt in worship! Worthy, Worthy, Worthy are You! One day we shall sing with them. We have in God a source of joy that does not die in the face of death, but rather grows and grows after death, never to stagnate in all eternity.

"Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings" (v.3) Ugh. What? What on earth could Paul have meant by this? How can someone rejoice in suffering. The answer is in v. 3 "for we know". The joy of Christians is not extinguished in suffering because of something Christians know. Nothing complicated, rather something deeply simple. For the Christian no suffering is ever in vain. Certainly we go through much pain which appears pointless to us, but God sees to it that none of our suffering is ever meaningless. This doesn't mean we should walk around with crazy grins, "Hello, I'm happy and I am going to die" No, Christians should be real people who do not wear masks; we are not called to be hypocrites. However, we, who trust in Jesus, can, like no one else on this planet, say with the Apostle Paul, "I am sorrowful, but always rejoicing." (2 Cor 6: 10)

For some of us sorrow and suffering are daily companions, waking us up each dark and dreary morning. Please, you must know, God has not abandoned you. He will not let your tears be in vain. He is your Sovereign Lord over everything, whether the day is light or loathsome. He has promised that even this will work for your good. "For we know that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope." (v.3) God ensures that suffering serves His church and blesses her. It wakes us up from our idiotic attempts to find ultimate joy in something other than God Himself. When we find God to be better than all else, and see that not even the worst moments of life can separate us from Him, then our joy increases all the more.

Yet maybe you are reading this and thinking, "If only you knew. I simply have no more strength" That's ok. This life was not meant to be lived in our strength, but in Christ's. He is enough and He carries us. He has gone the way of sorrows before us, having fully shared in our humanity He can fully sympathise with us and carry us. Hope in Him never disappoints. (v.5) He has never broken His word. He is a faithful and trustworthy God. Thus we can sing with David:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,

He makes me lie in green pastures,

He leads me to still waters and restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. [And look where these paths lead:]

Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil,

For You are with me, Your rod and staff they comfort me.

You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil.

Surely goodness and mercy, [even in the valley of the shadow of death] shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall return to the house of the Lord. (Ps 23)

Pure Joy

2011-11-20T19:02:00.001Z

Freddie the Russian wolf finds a lolly, rejoices and dies. What has happened? He hasn’t been shot, stabbed or poisoned. Charlie the Hunter has dipped a knife in sheep blood and the blood has frozen on the blade. The knife has been put in the ground blade up. Freddie the wold has smelt the blood and has come for lunch. Having started to lick the blood off the knife it is’t long before there is no more sheep blood on the knife. Freddie has cut his tongue open and is now drinking his own blood. In his joy and due to his cold tongue he doesn’t notice. He dies before he knows what has happened.

Freddie the wolf has first hand experience of empty happiness; of happiness that disappoints and destroys. In life we are all on the search for pure joy, that envigours and grants life. And so it is no bad thing for us to stop and examine whatever it is that makes us happy in life now. After all none of us wants to eat a knife without knowing it. This is very easy. There are three criteria to find out if something can deliver pure joy or not. All three are mentioned in the Bible passage Romans 5: 1-11. Anything worthy of the name "pure joy" must be able to defeat three things: 1) suffering (v.3), 2) death (indirectly vv.6-8) and 3( the wrath of God (v.9).

These three things stand in the path of every single one of us. If we would have pure joy, we need something that will overcome these mighty obstacles. Otherwise our so-called joy will be paper thin, paralysed if not dead. So where can we find pure joy?

In health? A hope of a long life? Before you finish reading this blog post you might need an ambulance. Two of the pupils I teach have been seriously ill this term. One was in an artificial coma, the other is fighting cancer. Neither has yet reached 15 years of age. If you don't know anyone fighting illness it is only a question of time. A question of time before suffering reaches you.

What about money then? Money's great! You can do so much with it. Yet Steve Jobs, with more cash than the USA at one point, was unable to secure his happiness. And we will never be as rich as him! Not to mention that in the middle of a financial crisis nothing is more moronic than investing hope in money. What about drugs?! Or alcohol, family, sex, friends, or the simple pleasure that comes from knowing everyone thinks well of you. Yet all of these will fail us. Once the high is past they leave a loud and violent emptiness. Family and friends argue and drift apart, they fail us and we fail them. And as for being well thought of; nothing is more draining than trying to achieve the impossible; have people think you are what you are not: perfect.

All of this sounds very negative. Yet no one wants chase something claiming to be happiness but carrying a hidden sting. No one wants to die eating knives in Russia. And, whether spectacularly or quietly, in our moment of need, anything or anyone, in whom we have tried to find ultimate joy, will fail us. The stream will run dry leaving us desperately thirsty and alone.

(TBC)

Lord Of Patience

2011-11-02T17:54:00.003Z

Heavenly Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus,
It’s because of His righteousness, that we pray You’d receive us.
Lord, You’re holy, we shouldn’t even be in Your presence,
Due to our sin we don’t deserve the least of Your blessings,
But through the cross and believing that Jesus is risen,
Even the worst of sinners can be redeemed and forgiven.
I’m living proof when I say this, and these are truthful statements,
You’re beautiful in displaying Your unusual patience,
You take the blasphemous, pridefully stuck in our blindness,
Instead of smashing us, decided to love us with kindness,
Even with unbelievers facing Your terror you slower,
Like when You waited patiently in the era of Noah,
We know that with you a day is just like a thousand years,
So does that mean for every sin You cry a thousand tears?
Who can record Your graces, adored through scores of ages?
You are reward these donations, You’re the Lord of patience.

Our Sovereign God, You are, the Lord of patience,
Your wrath, oh God, we deserve, but Christ has taken yeah,
Precious God, You are slow to anger, You’re the Lord of patience and Your love is patient.

Lord, we worship You, we know that everything we owe You,
And when we reflect on the time before we came to know You,
How we were unbelievers, committing tons of treason,
We had a hundred reasons why we wouldn’t come to Jesus,
But they were all excuses because our thoughts were useless,
That’s what the dark produces, Father, You already knew this.
We were foolish and clueless, just as ruthless as Judas,
Who knew that You would choose to pursue us, and move to woo us,
So after waiting with patience as we would run from You,
You activated our faith so that we would come to You,
Your law exposed our sin, so that we would know the danger,
And take refuge in the only Saviour, whose slow to anger.
And as our teary eyes beheld the cross of our King,
We understood the true meaning of long-suffering,
Who can record Your graces, adored through scores of ages?
You reward these donations, You’re the Lord of patience.

Our Sovereign God, You are, the Lord of patience,
Your wrath, oh God, we deserve, but Christ has taken yeah,
Precious God, You are slow to anger, You’re the Lord of patience and Your love is patient.

And now that we’re in Christ, the thing that is amazing to us,
Is that You still continue to display Your patience to us,
Through all our struggles and falls and our idolatry,
Though our grumbling and all of our hypocrisy,
Our self-righteousness, with brothers and sisters we’re hostile,
Our unforgiveness, all because we’re dismissing the gospel,
We should be slow to anger, but Your word, we’re slow to hear it,
Oh Father, help us please, we truly need Your Holy Spirit.
He is the only Portion who can shape this fruit within us,
We praise the risen Saviour who is able to present us, (Jesus),
Without an ounce of blame, with zero doubt or shame.
Lord Jesus, down You came from heaven to announce Your reign,
In the hearts of Your people, and now we have the truth,
And gladly choose to praise You for all of Your attributes.
Who can record Your graces, adored through scores of ages?
You reward these donations, You're the Lord of patience.

- Shai Linne, The Attributes Of God

Beautiful Feet

2011-11-01T13:28:00.004Z

Beautiful Feet Project from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo.

He Has Laid Death In His Grave

2011-10-28T16:59:00.000+01:00

John Mark McMillan
Ht: Justin Taylor

The Reliability Of The Gospels As Eyewitness Accounts

2011-10-25T14:07:00.001+01:00

This is a fantastically helpful video.
Ht: Charissa

It Is Impossible Now...

2011-10-23T09:00:00.000+01:00

"Who can comprehend the riches of the glory of this grace? Christ, that rich and pious Husband, takes as a wife a needy and impious harlot, redeeming her from all her evils and supplying her with all His good things. It is impossible now that her sins should destroy her, since they have been laid upon Christ and swallowed up in Him, and since she has in her Husband Christ a righteousness which she may claim as her own, and which she can set up with confidence against all her sins, against death and hell, saying, "If I have sinned, my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned; all mine is His, and all His is mine," as it is written, "My beloved is mine, and I am His" (Songs 2:16).

This is what Paul says: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," victory over sin and death, as he says, "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor 15:56,57)."

Luther, Treatise On The Freedom Of A Christian

What A Precious Treasure

2011-10-22T21:54:00.000+01:00

"What has been said, may show us what a precious treasure God has committed into our hands, in that he has given us the Bible. How little do most persons consider what a privilege they enjoy, in the possession of that holy book, the Bible, which they have in their hands, and may converse with as they please. What an excellent book is this, and how far exceeding all human writings! It reveals God to us, and gives us a view of the grand design and glorious scheme of providence from the beginning of the world, either in history or prophecy.

It reveals the great Redeemer, his glorious redemption, and the various steps by which God accomplishes it from the first foundation to the top-stone! Shall we prize a history which gives us a clear account of some great earthly prince, or mighty warrior, as of an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Marlborough? and shall we not prize the history that God gives us of the glorious kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, the Prince and Saviour, and of the great transactions of that King of kings, and Lord of armies, the Lord mighty in battle; and what he has wrought for the redemption of his chosen people?"

J Edwards, History Of a Work Of Redemption
See also Take Not Thy Bible From Us at Dave Bish's blog.

As Much Difference

2011-10-22T10:19:00.002+01:00

"There is as much as difference between heavenly and earthly comforts, as between a real banquet and one that is merely painted on the wall."

- Thomas Watson.

The Church Called And Collected

2011-10-19T12:33:00.000+01:00

Thanks Be To God For The Victory

2011-10-12T16:45:00.000+01:00

(Part 3 of a sermon from September. Part 1 Part 2)

Several weeks ago a massive storm tore across a Wednesday afternoon. You could see it coming as a thick wall of clouds pounded away the light from the sky like a tsunami. Aftwards it occured to me that this was a perfect example for the arrival of death in the world. You see, death is not an inherent part of this world. It has had an entrance in this world; an entrance as an enemy.

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law." (Romans 5: 12-13)

The comic Woody Allen once said, "I'm not scared of death. I simply don't want to be there when it happens" Why are people scared about death? Because death rules over this world. With a vicious sting death is a brutal enemy. We should be scared of death, because after death we go to the judgement seat of God. How terrifying can it be to stand before God without help, hope or imputed holiness? It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10: 31) None of us can conquer death. Unavoidably he stands before us.

Thanks be to God for the victory He gives us through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor 15: 58)

God has done it! What He does, no one can every oppose. God has gifted us the victory. We are free from the sting of death. Death is no longer the boasting conqueror, but the conquored butler. Death must serve us. In the very moment of our death, where it looks as if death has won, is the moment where death must bow down and bring us to the direct presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it is through Jesus that this is even possible. Jesus is the Captain of our salvation. Nowadays generals win their wars in relative safety. Normal soldiers must slog it out on the battelfield, whilst generals sit somewhere in safety. But how different is Jesus! Jesus Christ comes from the safety and glory of heaven to this fallen earth. He lays aside His privileges as the Sohn of God and becomes a son of man. No man, angel or messenger is sent to save us. The very Creator and King Jesus comes as the God-man to live and die.

This is the wonder of the Gospel. Jesus' death is the death of death. Death died in the death of Christ. Christ died in our place as a substitute bearing our death, our sin and the punishment God should have poured upon us. The reformer John Calvin summed up this indescribable glory like this:

“It follows that every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone.
For, he was sold, to buy us back;captive, to deliver us;condemned, to absolve us;he was made a curse for our blessing, sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair;

he died for our life; so that by him

fury is made gentle, wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal despised, debt canceled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subjected, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered, assaults assailed, force forced back,combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss, hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal.
In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune."

Do you want to beat death? You can't. But Christ has. Look to Him and praise Him! Do you want to earn the death of Christ? You can't. But Christ gives Himself freely to you. Look to Him and praise Him! Are you scared of death? Then take these words from Hebrews 2: 14-15 and eat them every day till your heart sings with peace in Christ;

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."

Do you find it difficult thanking God? Then look to Christ our Saviour! Look, as He did everything that we should have done. It is His blood, not yours, that was spilt at Golgatha. His cry of agony, not yours. His death was your death; and His resurrection guarantees yours!

Christlike Husbandship

2011-10-11T17:17:00.000+01:00

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her"

Ephesians 5: 25

More information on Robert McQuilkin and his great love for his wife here.

Better Than A Fairy Tale

2011-10-03T08:15:00.000+01:00

The problem with a story this good is that we are sceptical. It's simply too good to be true we think. Not a bit! Paul's main concern here is for us to see that there is an actual factual resurrection. Paul has two rock solid reasons for us to ground our hope upon.

1. Jesus is the Second Adam. "As it is written, the first man Adam, became a living spirit", the last Adam to a life-giving spirit." (v. 45)

In the Bible the whole of humanity in two groups. There are those who are in the likeness and family of Adam and there are those who are made new in the likeness and family of Jesus. Just as everyone has their earthly body from Adam, so those who are a part of Jesus' family will receive a new body from Him. This is the point of our salvation. God doesn't just forgive us and then forget us. Rather He has promised to make us like Christ. This why Christ became a man. Not just so we could be forgiven, but so that the whole person could be saved. Soul and body.

2. This is the basis of the second reason. We must be changed. Read verses 50-51, 53

"I tell you this, brothers: qflesh and blood rcannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. sWe shall not all sleep, tbut we shall all be changed, .... 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and wthis mortal body must put on immortality."

Why is this change so necessary? Because, dear friends, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. That is a problem, because exactly that has been promised us by God. Paul looks at the entire history and future of the world and is convinced of one thing. Everything must serve the fulfillment of the promises of God. Everything. God has promised that everyone, who believes in Jesus, will be saved from his sin and guilt and will be with God forever. This is the meaning of Jesus' prayer in John 17: 26 "Father, I desire that those, whom You have given me, be with me, where I am, to see my glory, that You gave me, for You loved me before the beginning of the world."

So, dear Christian, learn the promises of God. Get to know them. Trust the Word of God and build your hope upon it and God's promises in it, which are all yes and amen in Jesus Christ. At the end of history every Christian will repeat the words of Joshua, "Not one word failed, of all the good promises, that the Lord made to the house of Israel. All was fulfilled." (Joshua 21) You will be changed. When you die, your soul will be with Christ immediately. Then, one day, at the sound of the last trumpet upon Christ's return, your body will be resurrected, imperishable, never to be separated from your soul again.

What does this have to do with us now? The entire world has laid its hopes upon staying young. Billions of dollars are spent on this. Films, celebrities, adverts, all that is cool is young. Hence the world has so very little to say to older people. Even less to those who will never wear a size 8. As long as people are old, bigger than a size 8, then the world has no hope for them, unless they can change to be like the world. The world helps those in its image. Not those who don't fit.

Yet here is Christ with hope for us. Indeed Christ is our Hope! Christ tells us that the best body in the world is and will always be weak and perishable. Christ has something far better for us. A perfect body. Freed from pain, physical and mental handicaps, and all disappointment. Jesus promises to make us truly new and truly beautiful. There will be no ugliness and no handicaps in heaven.

So, while the world can only say, "The good times are over", all of heaven roars with joyous delight, "The best is still to come!" The future is infinitely brighter than the past. Until the day you die Jesus has a plan and purpose for you on this earth. The youth of this church need the wisdom, prayers, love and support of those who have more wisdom than us. Then, on the day when you die, you will taste and see that Christ is good. You will have a new body for a new world, for a new eternity with Jesus. Our soul's highest and weightest dreams can only begin to scratch the reality that is headed our way.

Yet this is not yet here. Look with me at verse 46. "The spiritual is not first, rather the natural, and then the spiritual." This is one of the reasons the world is so frustrated. It refuses to accept this order. It desires to have the perfect, the spiritual now. Impossible. Think how our friends will stare and be stunned when they see us get old and see our joy increase, not decrease, because we know that although this life is stamped with decay, something imperishable is coming for us.

(Part 3 will come sometime!)

My Hope For The Worldwide Elect Of God

2011-09-29T20:05:00.000+01:00

"The barren fields will sprout trees
The deaf and blind will hear and see
The dead will raise and begin to breathe
The earth will grow in pain to see
The sons of God declared to be
His full and glorious family
The beautiful perfect bride it’ll be"

Page CXVI, Wash Me Clean (Click on the link to listen)

Past, Present And Future - Secure In Christ

2011-09-19T16:35:00.000+01:00

(A translation of a sermon from a few weeks ago.)

After a long day at work Tom went to a local bar to relax with a drink. His beer was nearly empty when a pretty looking girl came and sat next to him. Might she buy him a beer? Of course she might do that, he replied, rather flattered. Tom thanked the girl and took a deep gulp of the new, ice-cold beer. That was the last Tom could remember of the evening. When Tom woke up he was lying in a hotel bathroom, in a bathtub full of ice. He looked around and saw notice. DO NOT MOVE. CALL THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY.

Tom picked up the phone lying next to the note. The police officer with whom he spoke seemed to know all about Tom’s predicament. “Sir, carefully, please reach behind your back. Is a tube coming out of your back?” There was. “Sir, don’t panic. Just stay where you are. You have been the victim of organ theft. A gang is going around the city at the moment stealing people’s kidneys. The emergency services are on their way.Had Tom known his future, or the recent past of the city, he would certainly have acted differently. Had he known these things his present would have been completely different.

Thus 1 Cor 15: 42-58 tells us about our past and our future, in order that this would change how we live now.The future: Trust God, Christ guarantees us a new bodyThe past: Praise God, Christ has died your deathThe present: Be unshakeable in faith and good works, Christ promises they are not in vain.If you wanted to sum up the Bible’s teaching about the resurrection of Christians in two words, then “certain” and “better” would not be bad.

Paul is arguing here, seeking to persuade us that we will certainly have a resurrected body, and that this will be vastly better than the one we have now. Now our bodies only faintly bear the mark of their Creator. With hurricane force the Fall stamped perishability all over us, so that the entire creation is groaning under this curse. But what difference is to be found in verses 42-44. Paul is comparing the body we have now with that we will have.

Perishability to imperishability. Dishonour to glory. Weakness to strength. A natural body to spiritual body. Now we are in the image of the earthly-one, of Adam. Whether man or woman, young or old, we are all in the image of Adam. Yet, in our death our bodies will be sown like flowers in the ground, to be resurrected by God in the image of the heavenly One. John describes this in 1 John 3: 2 “Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed, what we shall be. We know that when Jesus is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is!”

We will bear the image of the Heavenly One. But what does that look like? What type of body does Jesus have now? We know it’s recognisable but not recognisable because the disciples recognised Jesus, but only after He opened their eyes to see Him. Yet it’s far more than that. It is perfect. Freed from every stench of mortality. Capable of working locked doors. No cell of any organ, no neuron of the brain will ever fail again. And this is how we shall be. It would be blasphemous to suggest it, if the Bible didn’t insist on this so forcefully. The eternal plan of God is that He has predestined a people to be conformed to the image of His Son. (Romans 8: 29)

(Part two tomorrow)

Reverse Thinking

2011-09-19T09:27:00.002+01:00

Ht: The Gospel For OC

Living, He Loved Me. Dying, He Saved Me.

2011-09-15T19:08:00.001+01:00

"Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He’s coming

Oh glorious day, oh glorious day!"

(J. Wilbur Chapman)
Listen here to the Village Church's cover.

9/11 & 2.2 Billion

2011-09-11T12:01:00.000+01:00

As there is no longer any racial divide in Christ, (Eph 2: 14-19), 9/11 is not only a time to remember the vile evil that was perpetrated against innocent people in America. It is also a time to pray for our enemies - those who would actively plan another such slaughter, and for those who in the sovereignty of God have been born and live in places where the Gospel will not be so easily heard and celebrated this Lord's Day.
2.2 billion people live in such Muslim countries. Having no hope they are without God in the world. (Eph 2: 13) Many beautiful feet are still needed. Above the catastrophic chaos of racial and religious hatred and murder the Lamb reigns, and He shall have His bride from every tongue and tribe, conquering over all His people's sin through His own death and resurrection.

Imprison Me That I May Be Free

2011-08-28T20:48:00.000+01:00

HOLY SONNETS.

XIV.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you

As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

*Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. *

Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.

The Shining Of The Divine Light In The Soul

2011-08-21T19:32:00.000+01:00

"Men have a great deal of pleasure in human knowledge, in studies of natural things; but this is nothing to that joy which arises from divine light shining into the soul. This spiritual light is the dawning of the light of glory in the heart. There is nothing so powerful as this to support persons in affliction, and to give the mind peace and brightness in this stormy and dark world.

This knowledge will wean from the world, and raise the inclination to heavenly things. It will turn the heart to God as the fountain of good, and to choose him for the only portion. This light, and this only, will bring the soul to a saving close with Christ. It conforms the heart to the gospel, mortifies its enmity and opposition against the scheme of salvation therein revealed: it causes the heart to embrace the joyful tidings, and entirely to adhere to, and rest in the revelation of Christ as our Savior."

— Jonathan Edwards

Share The Gospel

2011-08-17T15:40:00.001+01:00

Kevin De Young

Ht: The Gospel For OC

Dancing In Fetters

2011-08-07T15:46:00.000+01:00

"How groundless and irrational is the mirth and jollity of all carnal and unregenerate men? They feast in their prison, and dance in their fetters. O the madness that is in the hearts of men!"

–John Flavel, The Method of Grace, in The Whole Works of John Favel (6 vols.; London: Baynes, 1820), 2:438

Ht: Justin Taylor

Jesus, King Over Everything

2011-08-06T15:29:00.000+01:00

Taken from the fantastic Risen album by Sovereign Grace Music

OT God Vs. NT Jesus?

2011-07-27T12:33:00.000+01:00

Ht: Challies

Grieving Two Tragedies

2011-07-22T21:49:00.000+01:00

The vile horrors of the terrorist attacks in Norway tonight are shocking. Not just because of Norway having little to no prior experience of such horrors in recent history, but also because pictures of smoking buildings and bloodied faces remind us how fragile we really are.

Meanwhile on the other side of England another tragedy hit the news, this time from Wales. A Welsh pastor has hit the headlines for his editing of parts of the Bible that he feels are too offensive and barbaric. The word tragedy is indeed big enough to cover the horrific murder of Norwegian citizens and the abuse of a loving God's word to a sinful world. Both events cut people off from life. Both events call for God's people to grieve and pray.

Ultimately the horrors of Norway give special clarity to the horror of trying to improve the Bible. We are not the captains of our own fate. Once death had no claim on us, once death did not exist. Yet, since Adam's fall into sin, we are under the reign of death and sin. In this violent captivity we are caught with only one hope. Jesus Christ. The only way we will hear of Jesus Christ, be born again to believe in Him and love Him, and ever begin to know Him in all His wonderful fulness is through the Bible. This Book is truly more precious than anything else on earth.

Blistering Joy In Singing

2011-07-21T19:50:00.001+01:00

Everyone does this at some point in life. You turn the stereo up till your ear drums almost hurt, and, oblivious to the world around you, you sing. Whether you can sing well or not is the last thing you care about. You sing for the joy of singing, and because this song, whatever it is, faintly touches something in you that comes alive. I do this with some of Coldplay's songs. My favourites are: Fix You, Death and All His Friends, and their latest Every Tear Drop Is A Waterful.

But there's a problem. A tension that jars the experience. Deep inside us we know that we were created to sing. But we also know that we were created to sing both about and to something far better and more wonderful than the contents of a secular pop song. In the moment when the song ends and we come back to ourselves we find ourselves in undeniable agreement with Jonathan Edwards who wrote "I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided that they are affected with nothing but the truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with."

In short our desires and emotions should be elevated to respond to the worth of what is set before us. It is not enough to sing warmly about things that are trivial. This will not satisfy, but, instead, further deepen our thirst. Our natural ability for great affectional warmth and vigour is a God-given faculty that enables us to feel properly about things that are truly great. Or, more correctly, about the One who is truly great; Jesus Christ.

He is the reason why we are capable of such moments of great joy in singing. He is the One who solves the tension between the happiness of the music and the worth of what is being sung about. He is the One who transforms heart-driven singing from a moment of cheap pleasure into a moment of blisteringly sweet joy. Which is why the church should have songs filled with the truth of the Gospel of the glory of Christ where the music transports us to highs that come close to the wonder of the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the reason why it is ultimately more satisfying to the soul to sing In Christ Alone than it is to sing Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God"

Col 3: 16

Should All Christians Be Engaged In World Missions?

2011-07-19T09:27:00.000+01:00

Ht: Desiring God

Yet My Christ!

2011-07-17T15:29:00.000+01:00

(Luther)

Ht: The Gospel For OC

A False Magnification

2011-07-17T15:26:00.000+01:00

"The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy.” —William Wilberforce

Which is why we are called to live by faith and not by sight, (2 Cor 4: 18. 5: 7), fixing our minds on the things above, (Col 3: 2) the things which are ours in Christ, (Eph 1: 3).

The Impossibility Of Not Worshipping

2011-07-15T17:55:00.000+01:00

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you."

David Foster Wallace, (Atheist)
Ht: The Proclaimer

In the flyleaf of my first German Bible I wrote down a quote that I heard at Soul Survivor in 2003 or 2004. The quote was from the band Faithless;

"If you place a thing into the center of your life That lacks the power to nourish It will eventually poison everything that you are and destroy you."

All of this is just a fallen world living up the reality that Colossians 1: 16 declares. Everything is made for Jesus Christ. Everything and everyone. Living out of sync with this purpose will ultimately be as successful as using a newspaper as a lifeboat. The Gospel does have the answers to the problems and questions the world has, and, more importantly, it has the answers to sin; the problem of the universe.

The Promised Mind Of Christ

2011-07-14T20:48:00.000+01:00

Looking at our fallen minds should not just lead us to bemoan our depravity, it should do what all conviction of sin leads us to do; it should lead us to look at Christ.

Here again we can see the wonderful riches of God's grace to us. Salvation could have been such a simple affair, God simply saving us from hell and putting us in heaven. He did not have to restore our minds beyond the capacities of Adam before the fall. He could have merely left us to survive in heaven with the understanding we would have enjoyed due to God's common grace.

Yet, wonder of wonders, God has promised in Christ not just to conform our hearts to the image of Christ, but also our minds. (Romans 8: 28-9) This means that God is at work renewing our minds through His truth, and even in this renewal our very lives (Romans 12: 2). Amazingly God has promised that we have the mind of Christ, (1 Cor 2: 16)

Fundamentally this means that we can give our selves to pressing on to know God in Christ, (Hosea 6: 3), filling our minds with the knowledge of God, as well as His very great promises to us, which are all yes and amen in Christ, and which give us all we need to live our lives in godliness. (2 Peter 1: 2-3)

Which means that there is incredible weight and power behind these Pauline prayers for us:

"know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Eph 3: 19)

"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." (Phil 1: 9-11)

Sobering Statistics And Survival Training

2011-07-14T12:10:00.000+01:00

The Independent reports today that it is likely that 42% of men in the UK will face cancer at some point in his life. Effectively that is almost every second person. And should cancer pass you and me by then something else will hit us. No one escapes suffering in this life. So how well prepared are you?

God granted Joseph and Egypt seven plentiful years before seven years of famine. At the risk of allegorizing could it be that the good times in our lives, if you are currently free from suffering, might be God's kindness to us; granting us time to put by a goodly store for when our faith might be sorely tried and tested?

Maybe one place to start, or to continue, in this laying up of faith in God's good grace is to take a read through the posts here that deal with suffering.

Fallen Minds And The Insufficiency Of Logic

2011-07-14T09:00:00.001+01:00

In the last post we looked at the sad truth that sin has rendered all of our minds sick and rebellious. In this post we'll see some of the practical effects of our depravity upon our understanding. Due to our fallen minds...

1) We will abuse the knowledge that we do have of this world.
We will subject our correct assumptions about the world to the wrong desires of our hearts. Whilst, when presented with correct information about the world, we shall rebel against it and cling to false understandings, as they do not bring us face to face with truth. The natural mind, still slave to Satan and sin, will seek to make a lie out of truth. Either through outright rejection of truth as truth, or through manipulating the truth to serve sin's end. Thus it is that people refuse the Gospel, though this is not due to an enslaved mind alone, and use correct knowledge about atoms to build atomic bombs.

2) We will not be able to rely on logic alone to enable us to escape temptations
Our capacities to reason and understand are not separated from us in a moral vacuum. They are a part of us and therefore suffer the same civil war as our heart and will, torn between holiness and sin. Therefore when confronted with temptation reason alone cannot be our life-line, as we will not be able to always reason correctly in the face of that which flesh desires. We will often refuse to think logically in the face of sin, or, in our perversion, embrace the illogical as the most reasonable option.

After all it is plainly clear that sin is nothing less than suicidal folly, like playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded AK-47. Yet, we all sin each day.

3) We will not understand the ways of the Lord as much as we could have done, had we never fallen from grace.
Ruptured by sin our mind will see darkened paths, where the Lord walks in clear light. We shall see contradictions in His word, where in reality that passages that war against each other in our heads are sweelty dancing alongside each other. Adam and Eve were not able to understand the Lord perfectly, but this was due to their limitation as finite creatures. We are limited even more as we are fallen, broken and rebellious, finite creatures. Not only are the capacities of our mind faulty in sin they are also rebellious, seeking to suppress the truth. (Romans 1: 18)

4) The best form of knowledge, indeed the truest form of knowledge, is faith-filled knowledge.
Objectively the truest form of knowledge is knowledge which can grasp as much of what can be known as possible. This would include not just details on a micro level but also on the macro level. I might know many things about a small, plastic screen if it was laid in front of me. But, while I could tell you lots of correct things about it, I would not know what it really was or what its function was if I didn't know it was an iPod screen. So it is with our knowledge of the world. While we might be able to ascertain many correct things about it, our knowledge is deeply inhibited if we do not know who has made and sustained the world, nor what His plans and purposes for it are, and thus how we might correctly use it.

The truest and most accurate knowledge then is the attempt to understand by faith in God through Jesus Christ the world as it is revealed to us, firstly, and most importantly, the Bible. It is only as we embrace with faith the worldview that the Bible gives us, that we will be able to view the world as best we can in this life time.

Futile Minds

2011-07-13T17:45:00.000+01:00

The depravity that each human has inherited since the Fall from the Garden of Eden is often described as total, not because of its depth of reach, but width of reach. That is to say that we are not as wicked as we could be, but, rather, that every aspect of our person is fallen. Heart, mind, body and will; this is our total depravity.

It is of no small importance that our minds suffer under sin as well as our hearts. Indeed the Bible paints a very dismal picture of the thinking abilities of the natural man. He suppresses the truth (Romans 1: 18) and is darkened and futile in his understanding, even ignorant. (Eph 4: 17-18) In Titus 1: 15 Paul talks of the defiled mind of the unbeliever, whilst Psalm 14: 1 says that those who do not believe in Jesus Christ are fools.

It should not come as a surprise to us that the hurricane-like destruction that sin has wreaked upon our heart and its desiring faculties should have hit our mind with the same fury. In the following post we shall see what some of the consequences of this are for our daily walk as Christians.

Perhaps the most immediate and pressing application is a fresh realisation and enjoyment of the priviledge we have in going to the Spirit inspired Bible, which is capable of making us wise for salvation and instructing us, (2 Tim 3: 15-16). In reading this book we have a dual help. Not only is the Bible inerrant and infallible, free from all error and full of wisdom, but also, in Christ, we have been given the Spirit whose job and joy is to guide us into all truth. (John 16: 13)

The Inviting Love Of The Father (Luke 15)

2011-07-13T09:00:00.000+01:00

For those of you wondering what God is like, then the story Jesus is telling is a clear window for us to look into and see the heart of God. God the Father's love is vast and wide, far better than all our hopes and dreams. He does not call us to come to Him as servants who need to earn His approval and acceptance. Instead He calls us to come to Him and receive His life, His love, Himself.

You cannot come to Him like the two sons and determine what type of relationship you shall have. However He is coming to you and offering you far more than you could ever hope for. Christianity is nothing less than the God of the universe offering very bad people the very best they could ever have: Jesus Christ as their Saviour, Treasure and joy. This is the best invitation in the universe. God calls us to come to His party. The very best party with the very best Host: God.

The younger son's parties sucked. They all came to an end and were filled with people who only wanted to know him for his money. The older son was miserable in his religion all his life. Living apart from God is death. So come to the party and live. This is the final point of the passage, as we saw yesterday. The story ends with the younger son reconciled into the father's family. The party is going great and everyone is having a fantastic time. And the father is not yet inside enjoying his party.

He is outside seeking the lost, seeking you. So where are you? Are you the younger son in obvious rebellion and sin? Are you the older son covering your own personal hate and selfishness with the thin covering of moral respectability? Either way you are lost. Jesus did not just tell this story but He fulfilled it by coming to earth to seek and save the lost by dying for them on a cross. He was rejected by God so that we could be accepted.

So come into the Father's party and enjoy God. Do not stay outside. One day it will be too late and the Father will have returned to His party with the door closed for all eternity. So look to Jesus Christ. See in Him the Father's heart of love for lost sinners, and trust Christ to bring you to the Father’s party.

The Generous Love Of The Father

2011-07-12T09:00:00.001+01:00

The story gets better and better. The love of the father is consistent, lasting, and far reaching. He does not treat his returned son like we treat a new toy or gadget. He is not excited one moment and bored the next moment. Instead his love for the son shows itself in more and more extravagant ways. It is not just compassionate but generous and reconciling.

Look with me at how the father deals with the son. The son starts to give his prepared speech and the father interrupts him before he can finish. It is clear that his son is indeed his son and not a servant, and as his son he is to have all the benefits and privileges that are his, and even more. In welcoming the son back the father gives far more than what the younger son would normally be entitled to. The father gives the very finest things he owns to the son. The very best robe, the very best ring, the very best calf. We could say that the son gets the father's best Ferrari, the finest holiday villa in southern Italy and the very best food.

But the father's generosity is so much more than mere stuff and possessions. You can be miserable and have lots of stuff. This is why the father gives the son his very best present: himself. Better than having all of the father's material wealth is being restored and reconciled with this father whose wisdom, love and kindness are never-ending. This relationship is fundamentally different to how the younger son had previously related to his dad. In the beginning the son goes to the father and asks and demands, he is the one who is seeking to control the relationship. Now the relationship is on the father's terms. It is not out of rudeness that he interrupts the son but out of kindness. Because if the son had continued with his speech, and the father had started celebrating only after the son had finished with his speech, then the time would have come when the son would have doubted the reality of the father's love and would have thought that he needed to continue doing things to earn his father's acceptance. After all, hadn't the father first given him the ring after he had finished apologising?

Yet here there is no chance of him making the mistake. Not only had the father not loved him before he had told the father of his love for him, but the father had given him something infinitely better than the son could have ever have hoped for. The son is secure. He must not do anything to work his way into his father's good books. Instead his father has loved him and pronounced him to be his son.

If you are already trusting Christ, - then I encourage you to think about this and rejoice in this. With sins forgiven you are accepted by Almighty God who is your Father. If you are His, He will never reject you, never leave you, never be bored of you, and never be angry with you. Not once for all eternity will He ever stop loving you with all the strength, wisdom, kindness, and compassion of the Father. Do you see what the father says in v.24 “This is my son who once was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Trust your Father's words. If He says that although you were dead you are now alive, then you really are alive. If He says that Jesus has saved you completely then He has done that.

So stop thinking that if you have a good day and do lots of “Christian” things that God loves you more than He does on a day when you look at porn, lie, swear and gossip. Remember God's grace. Remember the cross. Remember that once you were dead, now you are alive.

The Loving Father

2011-07-11T19:33:00.000+01:00

(Last week I was at a English camp in Vac, Hungary. I had the joy of preaching twice. Here is part 1 of one of the sermons I gave.)

The old man sighed. Around him nothing was to be seen apart from babies. Lots of babies in dresses playing musical instruments badly. The old man had been there for a long time and he was lonely. He looked down at the earth down below him in the hope that the humans had finally done something that would make him happy. No, - it was all so boring. The humans were having fun without him. So God decided to invent some pointless rules to ruin people's lives. For many people this is exactly how they think of God. He is bored and boring, lonely and needy, beating people up for having a good time without him. He is basically a bully. The type of God it would almost be worth going to hell to avoid.

The story that Jesus Christ is telling us here is designed to work like dynamite and blow away all our cold and wrong thinking about God. If God sounds to you like a cold and ugly bully then listen to Jesus. Jesus wants to fill your mind and melt your heart with the love of the Father. Love that is compassionate, generous and inviting.

The first thing to marvel at is the Father's compassion. The younger son is on his way back home after asking his dad to hand over his possessions and drop dead. He had rebelled against the loving and good authority of his father. The father looks up and sees his son far off in the distance and grasps his walking stick, preparing to beat the son for his crime. I mean if we had been the father then that's how the story would have been written, wouldn’t it? We see the son coming and we prepare to punish him, or to demand an apology and payment from him. No way is he getting off this easily.

Yet the very beginning of all our talk about God is to realise that where we are so broken and selfish, He is magnificently generous and gracious. He looks to the distance and is deeply moved, not with anger, but with compassion.The very God who would be perfectly just in leaving us to an eternity in hell looks on us with compassion. He lets Himself be moved by our misery. As this fountain of compassion overflows in the father's heart for his son the father does the unthinkable. He runs to his son, embraces and kisses him.

In those days the heads of the family, the fathers, simply didn‘t run. It was a no go – just like you wouldn‘t ever expect to see a really important politician run. And here we have the father running to his son. Running with compassion and mercy. And when he reaches him he does not wait, he does not act cold and let the son sweat in worry. He cannot contain himself and falls upon his son, hugging and kissing him. He loves his son.

The meaning is simple but life changing. God the Father does not look upon this world with a cold, indifferent heart. He is a God of love who sees us in all our filth, sin and rebellion and He is compassionate towards us. This God is willing to be humiliated as He runs after sinners. His love for them doesn't come from a lonely neediness, but from his own perfect joy which He delights to share with others.

He does not wait for us to make the first move but runs for us, throwing his arms. If you have found Christ, it is because God first came and found you. Fully aware that we deserve His wrath, He loves us out of the fullness of His heart.

All Things Are First In Christ

2011-06-02T09:33:00.000+01:00

"All things are first in Christ, and then in us. God chose Him first, and then He chose us. God singled Him out to be the Saviour, the Second Adam, and He calls us in Christ. God justified Christ from our sins, being our Surety, taking our sins upon Him. We are justified because He by His resurrection quit Himself from the guilt of our sins, as having paid the debt.

Christ is the first fruits of them that rise again, (1 Cor 15: 20). We rise again because He is risen. Christ first ascended; we ascend in Christ. Christ is first loved of the Father; we are loved in the Beloved. Christ is first blessed; we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ, (Eph 1: 3). So whatsoever is in us, we have it at second hand. We have the Spirit in us, but He is first in Christ. God has put the Spirit in Christ, as the Spring,as the Second Adam,... that should receive the Spirit for us all.

He is first in all things; Christ must have the pre-eminence. He has the pre-eminence in everything, both before time, in time, and after time, in election, in whatsoever is done here in this world, and in glorification. All is first in Christ and then in us. He is the Elder Brother."

Richard Sibbes, A Description Of Christ

You Were Made For Missions

2011-05-30T10:45:00.001+01:00

John Piper

Not His Suffering, His Sin

2011-05-26T19:17:00.000+01:00

"The worst problem in a person's life is not his suffering, but his sin."

Tim Keller, The King's Cross.

Consequently the greatest joy of the Christian is not knowing that all his sickness was born by Christ upon the cross, (Isaiah 53: 5, Rev 21: 1-5), but in knowing that all our sin was carried by Christ. His health has destroyed our sickness, even if we know this now only in part. Yet, better still, His obedience has led Him to the spot where our disobedience should have brought us. There, in our place, Christ's greatest agony, was not His physical suffering, but our sin and the torrential outpouring of the foaming cup of the wrath of God that flooded down upon Him. Not His physical suffering, but our sin as it became His sin.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God"

(2 Cor 5: 21)

The Sad Plight Of Missions In Europe

2011-05-22T12:45:00.000+01:00

In light of this please pray that God would be merciful and would rejuvenate the church in Europe through a massive movement of sending and supporting missions and missionaries amongst the furthermost peoples of the world. The latest Operation World estimates roughly 25,000 missionaries being sent out from Europe. (By contrast America and China both send out roughly 100,000.) Oh that Europe would explode with reformational and missional zeal.

As David Sitton recently tweeted Matthew 9: 37 ("Pray that the Lord would send more workers into the harvest") is life changingly violent in the Greek. Exballo means to expel and is used to talk about dealing with demons. Therefore let us pray that God would expel missionaries from amongst us, compelled by the love of Christ, and convinced that if Christ died, all His elect died with Him and will, upon hearing the gospel, be given faith, be united to Christ and will rise with Him on the last day.

Erasing Hell

2011-05-21T07:42:00.003+01:00

Francis Chan with some very wise words on thinking about Hell.

We Are Blameless In His Jealous Love

2011-05-14T08:17:00.000+01:00

Consider The Joy Of Belonging To Christ

2011-05-14T08:11:00.000+01:00

Consider the joy of knowing that in the deepest, darkest and most forlorn moments of sin-stricken hopelessness your hope is bright and strong enough to illuminate a pitch black universe. And consider the joy of knowing that in deceptive times of false comfort, where selfrighteousness throws her loathsome shadow like a blinding cloak over your head, your hope is yet unbound, unbeaten, unbreakable.

Such is the joy of the Gospel. It is not the case, as we so often despairingly think, that sin and selfrighteousness will snuff out the tiny candle of Christ's light in us. Rather they are like pools of black ink being slowly, but surely, dried up under the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Gazing upon His glory we are being changed into His likeness. 2 Corinthians 3: 17 is no lie.

Yet while our Father continues to reshape us in His love, and while the day continues to tarry till our Beloved tears the skies in two with His majestic splendour, we have hope. Completely independent of my mixed thoughts, feelings, deeds, words and affections. It comes to parched souls like rushing waves of living water, it comes in, possibly, the sweetest words ever written in all of human history.

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 3: 22-25

Justified. Redeemed. Reconciled. Forgiven.

All by grace. All through faith. All from God.

All for His glory. All for sinners. All in Christ.

Christ is mine and I am his forever.

All I Have Is Christ

2011-05-03T19:52:00.003+01:00

Celebration & Mourning The Death Of A Fellow Sinner: Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-02T19:53:00.000+01:00

I have found these two posts very helpful:

Can We Celebrate Death? - Paper Angels

How Should Christians Think Of The Death Of Osama Bin Laden - Justin Taylor

This is a prime example of how the gospel can and should shape our feelings, thinking and speaking. Reflecting on this will enable our conversation tomorrow about Bin Laden's death to be seasoned with salt. In speaking of his death, do we not finding ourselves wanting to speak all the more about His, Jesus Christ's, death?

Jesus Paid It All // It Is Well With My Soul

2011-05-02T10:00:00.000+01:00

Jesus Paid It All / It Is Well With My Soul from Andrew Laparra on Vimeo.

Saying, Pleading, Weeping, Rejoicing And Praying With Paul

2011-04-30T09:14:00.001+01:00

Dear World,

"I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls."

The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 12: 15

Don't Waste Your Life: Reject Retirement

2011-04-30T08:23:00.000+01:00

Don't Waste Your Life from Andrew Laparra on Vimeo.

To Be In Christ

2011-04-28T08:19:00.002+01:00

“To be in Christ is to be in the midst of that new creation, which is to come forth from the ruins of these old heavens and this worn-out earth. If any be in Christ, then to him the new creation has come—‘Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’

He is like one who has already reached his glorious home, who is looking back upon this land of the storm and the curse, as one who has found his way to the city of peace, and laid himself down upon the banks of the pure river, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Thus faith is taught to anticipate the glory, and to dwell in the midst of it, as if it had actually arrived.

If these things be so, then how differently, from what we too often do, should we read such chapters as the two closing ones of Revelation. It is not imagination, dwelling upon pictures, as some speak; it is faith conducting us into the very midst of the reality.”

Horatius Bonar,
Ht: Of First Importance

Declare His Glory Among All Peoples

2011-04-26T18:13:00.000+01:00

Psalm 96 wants the Church of Christ to be wholehearted in her devotion to the global cause of Christ amongst all peoples. Here is why:

1) Until we see Jesus face to face true praise will always lead to our joy in Christ spilling over into our passionate proclamation of Christ to all who are not yet His. So it is in vv. 1-3. Three times we are told to sing to the Lord, and then the Psalmist calls us to "tell of His salvation" "declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples!"

2) We are commanded to be true to our identity as redeemed worshippers. As those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good through the salvation we have in Christ our hearts are naturally moved to praise Christ. (As in point 1) In God's wisdom and grace we are commanded to do that which shall bring us the greatest delight in Him. The call of the Psalmist to praise and preach is nothing less than the command of God that we do that which we were saved to do.

3) The Lord God is the only true God. He is great and greatly to be praised, to be feared above all gods! (v. 4) He made the heavens and splendour and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. (vv.4-5) The royal wedding, which takes place very soon I am told, will be pretty impressive. Rich people, smart cars, expensive clothes,... an orchestra of bling. Yet all the pomp and circumstance that Her Britannic Majesty can summon cannot change the fact that she looks like an impoverished pauper next to the majestic glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one falls down as if dead before Queen Elizabeth the Second. Before King Jesus His best friend John could not fall before Him in awe and trembling quick enough. (Rev 1: 17) And every single man and woman, boy and girl on this planet without the Lord Jesus is spiritually bankrupt. How can we withhold the greatest Treasure from them?

4) God will dwell with His people, judging them in all righteousness. Verses 10-13 make it crystal clear that the Lord reigns and that He shall come to judge the world in righteousness and rule over His bride in faithfulness. This is a message of terror for rebels and joy for all the earth. (cf. Rom 8: 21). As Carl F. Henry famously summed it up, "The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time." There is neither an effective hinderance to the church enjoying this future eternity with Christ, nor is there an escape from the righteousness judgement that will come on all without Christ.

5) Why the urgency? How are the nations, let alone the nations who have never heard of Christ, guilty? They serve idols. Whether in Burma or Birmingham, Rangoon or Rome, Laos or London everyone is an idolater. Whether we bow the knee before statues or sex, gods or gold, ultimately we all make ourselves to be gods in place of the one true God, with many mini-gods in our lives to try and fill the void that comes from being estranged from God. Yet the Bible pulls no punches. "The gods of the people are worthless idols." (v. 5) They cannot save those who worship them. Everyone becomes what they worship, and in worshipping the idols the nations have to a man become worthless like their futile gods.

6) Not only is this horrific in itself, but it is a horror for what it has replaced. The command of God to all people is that they honour and obey Him, worship and thank Him. Everyone knows enough of God, (Romans 1: 18-31) to be able to honour and thank Him. Yet every single person on the planet has tried to suppress this truth, like a madman in the midday sun, eyes screwed up, screaming that he lives in darkness. Not one person has ascribed to the Lord the glory due His name. (vv. 7-8)

7) Yet the cause of missions is the ultimate sure hope. Christ will win and conquer sin, Satan and death forever. All His elect shall be brought home and those outside of Christ at death shall remain outside for ever. Their unbelief is not their minivictory to spite Christ, but the sad proof that they never were part of His sheep. Every as the Psalmist wrote this psalm calling the nations to come and worship with the Jews, (v.8), this has come upon us. After Christ's death and resurrection the fulfillment of this hope has arrived in the church, made up of all peoples, who worship not on a geographical mountain, but who are the sought out of the Father, worshipping His Son in Spirit. (John 4: 24) The certainty that the Lamb will have His blood-bought Bride is seen in the certainty of the Sacrifice that bought us. The blood that availed for me will never lose its saving power till all the church of God be saved to sin no more.

Therefore:

"Declare His Glory Among The Nations: His Marvelous Works Among All The Peoples"

(Psalm 96: 3)

I am preaching this Psalm on Sunday - although the above is the gist of my initial notes, not a sermon translation. Please pray that in life and sermon I would be faithful to God's word, and that, for the glory of our dear Redeemer, men and women would hear God call them to change the direction of their lives and do something radical for the cause of Christ amongst the unreached peoples who die each day without hope and without Christ.

Germany Is A Mission Field

2011-04-25T11:04:00.000+01:00

The Christian Landscape in Germany from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

Wolfgang, (left) and Christian Wegert are pastor and senior pastor respectively of the Arche (Ark) Church in Hamburg, Germany. I went there for a conference last October and was greatly encouraged to see their work in preaching the Bible faithfully, declaring the whole counsel of God and the supremacy of Christ amongst all peoples. I shall hopefully be going back to the church for another conference in August, Evangelium 21, which shall be the inaugural conference of an initiative seeking to breath life into German churches and restore evangelical theology to its proper centre stage place in churches in Germany. Please do remember Germany and the work of the Arche church and Evangelium 21 in your prayers.

He Made Him To Be Sin For Us

2011-04-22T23:37:00.000+01:00

"[Jesus is hanging on the cross.] Then Jesus is startled by a foul odor. It isn‟t the stench of open wounds. It‟s something else. And it crawls inside him. He looks up to his Father. His Father looks back, but Jesus doesn‟t recognize these eyes. They pierce the invisible world with fire and darken the visible sky. And Jesus feels dirty. He hangs between earth and heaven filthy with human discharge on the outside and, now, filthy with human wickedness on the inside.

The Father speaks: “Son of Man! Why have you sinned against me and heaped scorn on my great glory? You are self-sufficient and self-righteous—consumed with yourself and puffed up and selfishly ambitious. You rob me of my glory and worship what‟s inside of you instead of looking out to the One who created you. You are a greedy, lazy, gluttonous slanderer and gossip. You are a lying, conceited, ungrateful, cruel adulterer. You practice sexual immorality; you make pornography, and fill you mind with vulgarity. You exchange my truth for a lie and worship the creature instead of the Creator. And so you are given up to your homosexual passions, dressing immodestly, and lusting after what is forbidden. With all your heart you love perverse pleasure. You hate your brother and murder him with the bullets of anger fired from your own heart. You kill babies for your convenience. You oppress the poor and deal slaves and ignore the needy. You persecute my people. You love money and prestige and honor. You put on a cloak of outward piety, but inside you are filled with dead men‟s bones—you hypocrite! You are lukewarm and easily enticed by the world. You covet and can‟t have so you murder. You are filled with envy and rage and bitterness and unforgiveness. You blame others for your sin and are too proud to even call it sin.

You are never slow to speak. And you have a razor tongue that lashes and cuts with its criticism and sinful judgment. Your words do not impart grace. Instead your mouth is a fountain of condemnation and guilt and obscene talk. You are a false prophet leading people astray. You mock your parents. You have no self-control. You are a betrayer who stirs up division and factions. You‟re a drunkard and a thief. You‟re an anxious coward. You do not trust me. You blaspheme against me. You are an unsubmissive wife. And you are a lazy, disengaged husband. You file for divorce and crush the parable of my love for the church. You‟re a pimp and a drug dealer. You practice divination and worship demons. The list of your sins goes on and on and on and on. And I hate these things inside of you. I‟m filled with disgust, and indignation for your sin consumes me. Now, drink my cup!

And Jesus does. He drinks for hours. He downs every drop of the scalding liquid of God‟s own hatred of sin mingled with his white-hot wrath against that sin. This is the Father‟s cup: omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future—omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross. The Father can no longer look at his beloved Son, his heart‟s treasure, the mirror-image of himself. He looks away. Jesus pushes himself upward and howls to heaven,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Rick Gamache (senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Fellowship, Bloomington, MN)

"It's Good Friday - Pinch Me"

2011-04-22T22:48:00.000+01:00

There come times in life where people say they have to pinch themselves to be sure that what is happening is true. The news of the gospel is a "pinch me" moment.

We are alive. Created at the Father's command by the Son as a present for Him. Created with a purpose. Life has meaning, love is real, relationships are a reality. Life is not a cosmic joke told by chaos. Yet in this glorious drama of life, life designed to honour the Father through His created people's joyful delight in and obedience to His Son, something is foul.

Death rules over all mankind. Cosmic treason has shaken the stage. Following their first parent Adam every single human being has waged war against God. His truth has been ignored, surpressed, and denied. His nature has been slandered, accused, and blasphemed. The wickedness of man has been met by love's wrath. All of mankind stands in death's firm grasp; their future held in the fury of the Father's ceaseless delight in His Son.

Lost. Man is thoroughly lost. Yet within minutes of Adam's sin God did the unthinkable. He promised to deliver the damned. A Seed would come and crush Satan's head, crush the power of death over man, and that glorious Seed would crush Satan's might through the Seed's suffering. A further picture was given; this would be an innocent Sacrifice. He would not come from Adam's cursed line, but from Eve. Born a human, yet not born of natural descent, for fallen man could not save himself, born a God-Man. This God-man would be slain, without any guilt in Him. He would lay His life down, submit Himself to death. And sinful, rebellious man would be clothed in the righteousness of this One.

In His grotesque death the penalty for sin would be exhausted for all who would be united to this Second Adam, for all who would come from this Seed. The Father's eternal plan was a plan of rescue through His own Son, a rescue given in free grace. This would be given to those who deserved to spend eternity drinking the cup of God's terrible fury. Over the course of history God continued to remind His people of His promised Rescue. He showed them again and again what the Promised King would do.

What is Good Friday? It is the "pinch me" truth that He has come. The Promised One has come and done all that was promised of Him. Jesus Christ was slain, slaughtered, condemned, crushed, damned, broken, bruised, pierced, forsaken, and cursed for us. It is finished.

"Surely he has borne our griefs,and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

(Isaiah 53:4-6)

Pinch me. Christ is my Saviour forever. The gospel is true.

The Best Of Dreams

2011-04-22T10:00:00.000+01:00

The very best of all our dreams is nothing but a nightmare if it leaves us without Christ. The very best of all our hopes is nothing but a cold slaughter of joy if it separates us from our Beloved. The very best blessing the world can give is a curse if it turns us away from the Saviour.

Conversely, the greatest curse the world can heap upon us is a blessing if it brings us closer to the Saviour. Christ is to be had at all costs. Put simply I have no good apart from You, Christ. (Ps 16: 2)

This Is An Emergency: The Tears Of The Saints

2011-04-21T13:27:00.004+01:00

Tears of the Saints from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo.

Ht: History Makers

It's Meant To Be Painful

2011-04-01T12:45:00.000+01:00

From an interview with Francis Chan from 2008, on the subject of family members dying without Christ.

EN: Was there a time of your life when you were inclined to turn away from God?

FC: The only time I can remember when I thought about genuinely turning away from God, was when my grandmother died and she was Buddhist. My brother and I watched her die and we were in the room as the doctors turned the EKG off—you know the machine that was keeping her alive. Watching the EKG go flat was so disturbing to me—the thought that she was going into eternal punishment and it was so hard for me to bear and accept. I was very tempted to just walk away from everything I knew. But my logic wouldn’t allow me to do that. I would have to throw away all the knowledge I knew—the knowledge of prophecy and history and I would have to throw away all that I knew to be true to my heart. But at that moment that I wanted to walk away from God, because if I was right my grandmother would be spending eternity in hell and that was just too much for me, but I couldn’t turn away from what I already knew. I just had to deal with the pain and I have to deal with the pain even to this day.

EN: How do you deal with the pain?

FC: Honestly, I try not to think about it, which probably isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe it is the right thing because I’m supposed to dwell on things that are excellent and praise worthy and lovely.

I think it’s painful and it’s meant to be painful and it’s supposed to spur me on to not want to feel that pain again and so I do everything I can to tell people what the love of Christ has done for them.

It’s just like every other pain in the world. You don’t know how you get through it but you do.

Ht: Ellie

Ps: Just what do you say, when family members say down the phone, "At least his suffering is over now." ? At the moment I'm saying nothing.

Goodbye Gramps

2011-03-31T17:30:00.001+01:00

As my great grandpa lies in his hospital bed with pneumonia in one, possibly both, of his lungs. I am sitting here in Germany, both lungs working. Despite 3 and a half months of intense nicotine orientated lung damage 5 years ago. Why am I not lying on my death bed? Grace.

My great grandpa - we know him as Gramps - is an atheist and proud of it. His funeral will be a humanist one, and he has requested Sinatra' classic; "I Did It My Way." Gramps is in a hospital in near London. I am in Germany. If I was take a plane over there tonight he would be dead before I arrived in all likelihood. I can pray against all possibility that Gramps has another Christian relative, who even now is sharing Christ with him, and that the Spirit is, even as I type, opening up Gramp's eyes to Christ. I am praying that.

Yet if this does not happen within 24 hours Gramps will begin an eternity of conscious torment under the wrath of God. One day I shall die. Maybe in 60 years' time. When I enter God's presence, Gramps will have been there long before, yet without Christ to shelter Him. Every second of joy in Christ I am blessed with, will be matched by alienation, darkness, distress and terror for Gramps. Second by second. For all eternity.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

To sit here and let the horror of this sink in, is nothing compared to the horror Gramps may well sink into.

Romans 8:28's lightpost beam feels fog-covered. But it hasn't stopped shining. Clarity on whether I am wasting my life or not returns quickly in the face of death. My hope is that God would not only save Gramps, even in this last fleeting moment, but also that in ways that are deeper, more permanent, more life-altering, more priority-changing, God would awake affections for Christ in me that have lain dormant up til now. Affections that would help me life a Phil 1: 21 type of life. Affections that would see me so satisfied in Christ that my steps would echo the symphony of

"But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God."

(Acts 20:24)

God Loves You But The Problem Is He's Holy

2011-03-26T17:05:00.000Z

How many evangelistic talks have this turning point in them? "God loves you beyond all measure, but because you are a rebellious sinner God's love to you is contradicted by His holiness, which hates you."

Such a presentation is commendable in its desire to be true to the righteous holiness of God which is too pure to even look upon sin and the love of God which moves Christ to die for us while we were still far off. The only problem is that it makes God look like He is either schizophrenic or, which is no better, the victim of His attributes. His holiness arm-wrestles His love and wins, only to be surprised by love's cheeky upper cut in the form of the cross.

Much, much, much better is to say to sinners - saved and unsaved - that it is precisely God's love which not only their only hope, but also their worst enemy. For God's love is nothing less than perfectly holy; indeed His holiness may be summed up as each Person of the Trinity's uncompromising love for the other Persons. No-one and nothing do they cherish more than each other's perfection. It is this holy, pure, loving God who stands against us in terrifying wrath at our rebellion against and mockery of God. And, it is exactly this holy, pure, loving God who reaches out to us with the hand of grace, the very hand that struck Christ with divine wrath so that we might only feel the tenderness of the Father's embrace.

The miracle is not that God stands against our sins because He is a God of love. This is logical. The miracle is that God stands by us despite our sins, because He is a God of love.

Holy love determines that we cannot remain in our sins and know God's kindness. Holy love will either woo us to the Son, or will arm itself against us for all eternity. There is no dichotomy or diversity of purpose in God; He is not torn between conflicting passions, all that He is, He is for His Son. All that He is, He is for those who will have Him. All that He is, love and holiness, He will be against those who continue in their rejection of Him.

Dark And Cheerless Is A Morning Without Christ

2011-03-26T07:11:00.001Z

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,

Christ, the true, the only light,

Sun of Righteousness, arise,

Triumph o'er the shades of night;

Dayspring from on high, be near;

Daystar, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn

Unaccompanied by thee;

Joyless is the day's return,

Till thy mercy's beams I see;

Till they inward light impart,

Glad my eyes and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine;

Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;

Fill me, Radiancy divine,

Scatter all my unbelief;

More and more thyself display,

Shining to the perfect day.

Charles Wesley, (From the album Love Divine)

The Missionary Heart

2011-03-20T20:53:00.000Z

"Karen Watson, a missionary recently killed in Iraq, wrote a last letter to be read in the event of her death. It was read at her funeral.

Dear Pastor,

You should only be opening this letter in the event of my death.When God calls there are no regrets. I tried to share my heart with you as much as possible, my heart for the nations.

I wasn’t called to a place; I was called to Him. To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, His glory my reward, His glory my reward…

The missionary heart:
Cares more than some think is wise
Risks more than some think is safe
Dreams more than some think is practical
Expects more than some think is possible

I was called not to comfort or to success but to obedience…

There is no Joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving Him.

I love you and my church family.

In His care,

Salaam, Karen"

Ht: History Makers & Desiring God

Love Divine

2011-03-19T20:03:00.003Z

I am loving the album "Love Divine", that I discovered today on Spotify. It is worth listening to there for the remake of "And Can It Be" alone. (And "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" is an anthem!!)

"No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
Alive in him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th' eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th' eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own!"

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in thee I find;
raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
false and full of sin I am;
thou art full of truth and grace!"

Buy on iTunes

The Only Hope We Have; And It Is Hope Enough

2011-03-18T13:22:00.000Z

Ht: Kevin DeYoung

Love Wins!

2011-03-15T18:27:00.001Z

With all the furore on the net about Rob Bell's new book Love Wins and with the book sitting in my Kindle about to be read I wanted to say one thing.

I love Rob Bell's title.
Love really does win.
It really does!
Just not how Bell thinks it will.
Nor is it the case that "justice wins", though justice will win.

The claim of the Bible is unashamedly love wins. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the eternal Jahweh, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ wins! Not one of His promises shall fail, but all, just as in the time of Joshua, shall come to pass. (Josh 21: 45)

The eternal predestined plan of our infinitely awesome God will suffer no setbacks, hindrances, delays, and His outstretched arm will accomplish everything which His eternal heart of love purposes. He has elected a people for Christ. (Eph 1: 4, John 17: 2) He has sent His Son into redeem sinners. (John 1: 14, Mark 10: 45) And His Son was obedient in all His life, even unto death on a cross. (Phil 2: 8-11)

Christ was crucified. The Righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God. (2 Peter 3: 18). He is our Redemption put forward by God as a propitiation to be received through faith. (Romans 3: 25). He did rise again from the dead for our justification. (Rom 4: 17). He has ascended into heaven having made purification for sins and He is seated at the right hand of the Almighty. (Heb 1: 3). He has poured out His Spirit, (Acts 2!) and will build His hell defeating church, (Matt 16: 18) and will gather His elect from every tongue and tribe. (Romans 8: 30, Rev 5: 9).

All His enemies will be put under His feet. Death will be eternally destroyed. (1 Cor 15: 25-26) He will lead us to a New Heavens and Earth, where He will wipe away every tear from His people. (Rev 21: 2-5) He will write His name upon our heads and be the everlasting lamp in the city of the people of God, drenching them in the light of His beauty forevermore. (Rev 22: 1-5) He will be glorified in the glorification of His people and the eternal conscious damnation of all who have rejected Him.(1 John 3: 2, Rom 9: 13-24)

In the joy of His people and the misery of the damned in the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus the wisdom, grace, power, majesty, holiness flowing from the heart of the Father for His Son by the Holy Spirit will be glorified world without end. Love wins.

The Sermon - Secure In Christ

2011-03-06T19:19:00.000Z

Stumbled across this tasty little resource today. The Sermon. Twenty or so pastors preaching mini sermons. All on video.

Mike Reeves has three sermons there. I have watched two of them today. One of them is especially great. I recommend "Secure In Christ".

Jesus Christ: Hope Of The Ages

2011-03-06T10:14:00.000Z

Ht: Glen Scrivener - his blog is brilliant.

The Old Testament Is About Christ!

2011-03-05T19:39:00.001Z

I'm beginning some tentative steps towards blogging about Christ in the Old Testament over on my German blog. My basic contention is that John 5: 39 is true; "the Scriptures testify about me [Christ]"; and thus the Old Testament is foundationally a set of books about Christ. Christ is not the footnote to the Bible, coming in at the end of the Bible in the New Testament. Christ is not to be found in the NT alone, - after all we don't want to say that God would give us a book, 2/3 of which is not about His dearly beloved Son.

If this sounds slightly dodgy/new/surprising to you, then may I whole-heartedly recommend reading the posts to be found at Christ The Truth, a blog by Glen Scrivener. This is hugely important. If Christ is the End, Aim and Object of the Old Testament; then if we read the Old Testament and do not see Him there, we are doing something horribly wrong. In this case we need to learn from Jesus how to read the Father's Spirit given word about His beloved Son.

Effectual Calling Is No Divine Pressgang

2011-03-01T20:50:00.000Z

Effectual Calling is not some form of Divine pressganging operation whereby a kicking and screaming will is forced to bow. God never forces anyone to become a Christian. Mercifully, neither does He ever leave it to us to take the initiative. Else, heaven would be empty and hell full.

Effectual Calling is nothing less than the Spirit's restoration of a bruised and broken, defeated and dead, powerless and perverted will to full health. What is healthier than, upon seeing Christ in all His saving glory and grace, loving, treasuring, adoring, exalting and believing Him?

This must be taught or else the will is the Saviour and Christ and His Spirit are dethroned, left as mere cameo actors in the drama of salvation. The only way a will in bondage to sin, self, Satan and death will ever give a free response is if it is first of all restored to freedom by the life-giving Spirit.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor 4: 6)

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved" (Eph 2: 4-5)

Spiritual Passivity Is Actively Sinful

2011-03-01T20:18:00.001Z

Last weekend I learnt quite painfully that if I do not pursue Christ as the Supreme Object of my affections my heart will pursue sin with an equally relentless energy. To be passive in fighting sin is to actively side with sin. The heart yearns and worships with an unbelievable violence.

Worshipping in the Holy Spirit the heart will dance with grace higher and higher in the wonder of Christ's likeness. Worshipping apart from the Spirit will turn upon itself with hammer and nails and furiously smash itself, in vain trying to enable idolatry to satisfy it.

Passivity in seeking Christ is to actively seek sin.

"How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

The children of mankind take refuge kin the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light do we see light."

Psalm 36: 7-9

Boasting

2011-02-26T16:16:00.002Z

God Is Enough

2011-02-25T21:01:00.000Z

Lecrae

A Ruling Power

2011-02-23T10:00:00.000Z

"This is a spiritual power, which rules in the midst of enemies, and is powerful in the midst of distresses. And this is nothing else than that strength is made perfect in my weakness, and that I can turn all things to the profit of my salvation; so that even the cross and death are compelled to serve me and to work together for my salvation. This is a lofty and eminent dignity, a true and almighty dominion, a spiritual empire, in which there is nothing so good, nothing so bad, as not to work together for my good, if only I believe. And yet there is nothing of which I have need — for faith alone suffices for my salvation — unless that in it faith may exercise the power and empire of its liberty. This is the inestimable power and liberty of Christians."

Luther, Treatise On The Freedom Of The Christian

A Missionary God

2011-02-21T16:15:00.000Z

Ht: Dave Bish.
Ps: The guy speaking in the video is Raphael Anzenberger. He is working as an evangelist in France: please pray for his work with France Evangelisation. (Best read in French, though Google Translate has got better..)

The Monster Will Die

2011-02-19T20:45:00.000Z

This morning brought a fresh reminder that indwelling sin is not a ghost story told to scare Christians into obedience but a real life monster who dwells not so much under the bed, but in the heart. In repentence I found - and still do find - sweet comfort in these Gospel promises and truths.

1) God is merciful in permitting His saints to fall sharply, yet not finally, if the painful bump awakes them to see how far their feet had wandered in self-righteousness and idolatry beforehand. In faithfulness does God afflict His saints. (Psalm 119: 75

2) Confessing sin to brothers who love you, pray for you and encourage you is a great blessing. It is a blessing that has a phoenix like quality, for it will only arise in golden splendour if the ashes of sin are clearly confessed. Half-hearted confessions give little joy.

3) Food is of little importance to those who mistakenly think they are well-fed. To those whose eyes are opened to their true hunger Christ is wonderful and glorious in His all-sufficient beauty. So it is that Hebrews 4: 15 has taken on a golden hue for me. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" Christ sympathises with us. He is not just a perfect sacrifice but a patient sympathiser! What a Saviour!

4) If Christ was tempted in every respect so as to be an able sympathiser then surely I must expect to follow in my Master's footsteps and bless God for His grace in working good out of the evil of my sin. If I must be broken to be a better help and encourager to my brothers and sisters, then I shall say with David "Thy rod and staff comfort me". (Psalm 23)

5) One day 1 John 3: 2 will turn from a Bible promise to a fulfilled reality for me and all my sin shall be slain instantly, never again to rise. The monster shall die. Jesus has promised.

Pop Preachers

2011-02-19T11:12:00.001Z

Fantastic link on understanding the messages behind the preacher that everyone is listening to in 2011. Not Piper or Keller or Driscoll, not Bell or Reeves - Lady Gaga

(21/2/11 - link fixed.)

God's Mercy In The Permission Of Sin

2011-02-07T19:00:00.000Z

John Piper: "Finally, there is a theological paradox that people don’t like to
hear. But I think the Lord works on my pride by letting me sin so
much. There are so many words that come out of my mouth toward
my wife, so many feelings I have toward people, that when I go on
my face and I do this conscience thing, I don’t know how I could say
what Paul said: “I have served to this day with a clear conscience”
(2 Tim. 1:3). What planet does this guy live on? Is he in touch? I mean,
there are women in the world. Ever had a thought? Good night! I
think he must mean something like, “I keep real short accounts.”
I mean, a totally clear conscience, Paul? Give me a break. Am I being
blasphemous here toward the Word of God?

John MacArthur: I think he dealt with it. In Romans 7 he said, “I
do what I don’t want to do and I don’t do what I ought to do, and
I’m a wretched man.”

John Piper: And he had a guilty conscience.
John MacArthur: Yeah. But he dealt with his sin. It didn’t accumulate.
John Piper: And that’s the point I took away: a cultivated, secret
life of sin is the killer. "

From Stand: A Call For The Endurance Of The Saints

All God's Giants

2011-02-06T19:04:00.000Z

"All God's giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them"

James Hudson Taylor, (whose biography is simply excellent.)

"For Elijah was a man just like us, and he prayed...." James 5: 17. God has granted His church heroes in the faith not to be looked upon as spiritual demi-gods, but to show us what weak and sinful men might do when a sovereign Father takes hold of them to display His glory. (2 Cor 4: 7)

Bed Fail And The Tragic Truth Of Hollow Hopes

2011-01-31T20:43:00.002Z

One of the dangers in working life is to love your bed too much. At the end of a long day at the beginning of a love and certainly tiring week, the bed beckons with a seductiveness that under normal circumstances ought to be thoroughly foreign to an inanimate object. You lie down and curl up inside the warmth and safety of the duvet with the fleeting thought, "safe." Fleeting. Fleeting. Before you know it you have woken up and the very week you wished to run from is staring you in the face in a manner more befitting a salivating, belligerous Alsatian.

Right when you need saving the most, the bed fails. The bitter reality of false saviours is that right at the moment where we want and need them the most their own complete impotence is revealed. No matter what it is that we use to build our life upon, no matter where we seek refuge from the troubles and toils of life, everything is sinking sand. (Luke 6: 46-49)

Nothing can support us or help us. Nothing can deal with life, our failures, or more importantly our sin. Everything fails. But Someone can save us. Where everything fails, He succeeds. He is our everlasting Saviour and Priest, and because He continues forever, He is able to save to the uttermost all those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them. (Heb 7: 24-5)

Oh heart of mine will you not see,

they are all no good for me,

these wretch'd idols of hollow hope,

Seeking to hang me in their rope.

swift safety, cheap comfort

all leaves my heart in a foul rut,

for despite their many a claim,

they ever strive against the Name.

However tempting, however appealing,

All of sin is subtly scheming,

to lose me in its swiftly sinking sand,

GRACE: I remain in the firm grasp of Christ's hand.

This Is Love

2011-01-31T19:28:00.001Z

Warwick CU are having their mission week this week. (Information here.) Please pray for the spread of the Gospel through the work of the CU, Assistant Missioners and Andy Croft, that all who are elected to eternal belief will believe. (Acts 13: 48). It is good to pray with confidence knowing that God's promises stand true, unshaken by the winds of time and undefeated by man's unbelief.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

(Isaiah 55:10-11)

Yes, God Planned...

2011-01-15T17:23:00.000Z

The guys over at Above Every Name recently posted a stellar little video on the theme of whether everything that happens in all of history is predetermined by God (to which the Bible wholeheartedly resounds "YES!"). It is hard for us to really fathom why God determined to set up the universe as He is. Why sin? Why the fall? Ultimately the answer utterly annihilates our fallen objections to the socalled unrighteousness of God in letting there be sin. Ultimately the answer is that God created the universe and everything in it with the fixed plan that there would be sin, although He would not be its Author. What was the aim of this fixed plan? Having a people for Himself whom He had chosen before the creation of the world.

This alone, especially to us who are so blessed as to be among this uncountable number, should still our unbelief in God's goodness. Yet what should really cause our hearts to skip a lifetime of beats in unprecedented joy, wonder and awe is that God planned to have this people be rescued and redeemed by the bloody, barbaric and breathtakingly brutal slaughter of His Son by the very people He had created.

"Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain."

(Heb 13: 8)

"God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world"

(Eph 1: 4)

God does not sit in an ivory tower conducting this world like a bored 14 year old strategises over a game of Age of Empires. God sits over this world knowing what it is like from the inside, for His Son entered it. God sits over this world knowing what suffering is like, suffering that far eclipses any passing pain we may have here on earth, for His Son choose to let the wrath of God descend like a divine hammer upon Him as Christ died on the cross.

Yes, God planned for there to be sin before the creation of the world. No God is not the Author of sin or unrighteousness. All His ways are good and true. (Psalm 147: 17) Yet what objection can the created bring to so merciful a Creator? What can the pot say to the Potter who planned to have His own beloved Son crushed for us.

Jesus Christ Has Promised

2011-01-10T14:36:00.000Z

I cannot live like Jesus
Example though He be
For He was strong and selfless
And I am tied to me.

I cannot live like Jesus
My soul is never free
My will is strong and stubborn
My love is weak and wee.

But I have asked my Jesus
To live His life in me.
I cannot look like Jesus
More beautiful is He
In soul and eye and stature
Than sunrise on the sea.

Behold His warm, His tangible
His dear humanity.
Behold His white perfection
Of purest deity.
Yet Jesus Christ has promised
That we like Him shall be.

10 year old Betty Stam, ht: Challies

Totally Lost

2011-01-09T12:35:00.002Z

“Unapproachable, inaccessible in location or situation, untouched, untouchable, disconnected, unable to be met or out of touch. These are all words and descriptions given for yet another word: Unreached.”

Lost from HistoryMaker on Vimeo.

Ht: Justin Taylor

Hope For 2011 & All Eternity

2011-01-03T09:31:00.000Z

"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling

and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy,

to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,

be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."

- Jude 24, 25

The Francis Schaeffer Jackpot!

2010-12-28T16:44:00.000Z

Francis Schaeffer was a fantastic gift to the church. His teaching on presuppositional apologetics and the need to develop a Christian mind, a Christian way of thinking about the world, has greatly influenced me. And now Justin *I Am A Blogging Machine* Taylor has linked to LOTS of Francis Schaeffer lectures.

Whooooppeeee!

Hark The Herald Angels Sing

2010-12-28T12:09:00.000Z

This song is worth being sung all year round, not just at Christmas.

"Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

The Best Way To Read The Psalms

2010-12-28T11:39:00.000Z

"Also, I think that the best way to read the Psalms is to assume that

the speaker is JESUS

unless we have clear reasons to think otherwise. I seem to recall that both Augustine and Luther suggested that approach and it seems to work fine."

Paul Blackham

The Birth Of Christ & The Unreached Peoples

2010-12-24T21:41:00.001Z

As we gather to celebrate Christmas in comfort and peace this year we are privileged to have a reason to celebrate that never grows old or stale, a reason to praise and wonder that will never be exhausted of all its riches. God crossed the great divide between Creator and creation and become man for us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He became man for us so that He could be made sin for us, swallowing up our sin, death and hell in His eternal righteousness and life. Our debts he took from us and has graced us with His riches in their place.

Yet even as our eyes and hearts look back with thankfulness to the stable where Christ came for us as a baby, so our hearts look forward to and ache for the day when the skies shall be split by Christ's return for us. Christmas is not a festival that is to be celebrated forever here on earth. In looking back to Christ's incarnation we are counting down till Christ shall return as Judge, Saviour and King.

When shall this be? The Lord Jesus has given us a clear answer that, although we cannot know the day or hour, we do know that;

“This gospel of the kingdom

will be proclaimed

throughout the whole world

as a testimony to all nations,

and then the end will come.”

— Matt 24: 14

Therefore this year let us not forget that the true meaning of Christmas is the motivation for missions. Christ did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but took the form of a Servant and humbled Himself by taking on flesh, dwelling among us in obedience that led to His death for us. To truly follow the Servant King, the Divine Missionary, is to make His desire for the nations that are rightly His, (Psalm 2: 8), our desire. Truly following the Christkind, the Christ Child, is to be sent into the world just as He was sent. (John 17: 18)

Christ's second coming will happen when we have followed the example of the ultimate Missionary and gone to the thousands of unreached people groups. A light has dawned for those sitting in the darkness. The Light of the world has come and conquered our sin and unbelief with the warm rays of His love and grace. How many peoples must go another year dead in the icy darkness apart from the Son of righteousness?

If HE Is A Husband....

2010-12-23T22:17:00.000Z

"The incomparable grace of faith is this: that it unites the soul to Christ, as the wife to the husband, by which mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Now if they are one flesh, and if a true marriage — nay, by far the most perfect of all marriages — is accomplished between them (for human marriages are but feeble types of this one great marriage), then it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that Christ claims as His.

If we compare these possessions, we shall see how inestimable is the gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul. For, if He is a Husband, He must needs take to Himself that which is His wife's, and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how can He but take to Himself all that is hers?

In this is displayed the delightful sight, not only of communion, but of a prosperous warfare, of victory, salvation, and redemption. For, since Christ is God and man, and is such a Person as neither has sinned, nor dies, nor is condemned, nay, cannot sin, die, or be condemned, and since His righteousness, life, and salvation are invincible, eternal, and almighty, — when I say, such a Person, by the wedding-ring of faith, takes a share in the sins, death, and hell of His wife, nay, makes them His own, and deals with them no otherwise than as if they were His, and as if He Himself had sinned; and when He suffers, dies, and descends to hell, that He may overcome all things, and since sin, death, and hell cannot swallow Him up, they must needs be swallowed up by Him in stupendous conflict.

For His righteousness rises above the sins of all men; His life is more powerful than all death; His salvation is more unconquerable than all hell.

Thus the believing soul, by the pledge of its faith in Christ, becomes free from all sin, fearless of death, safe from hell, and endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of its Husband Christ. Thus He presents to Himself a glorious bride, without spot or wrinkle, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word; that is, by faith in the word of life, righteousness, and salvation. Thus He betrothes her unto Himself "in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies" (Hos 2:19,20)."

Martin Luther, The Freedom Of The Christian