The Vindication of God

The passage which met my eye was the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter of Romans. On reading it I received immediate power to believe. The rays of the Sun of Righteousness fell on me in all their fullness. I saw the complete sufficiency of the expiation which Christ had wrought for my pardon and entire justification. In an instant I believed and received the peace of the Gospel. If the arm of Almighty God had not supported me I believe I should have been overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears; transports choked my utterance. I could only look to heaven in silent fear, overflowing with love and wonder.

These words are from William Cowper, the English poet, on the verse of Scripture which brought him out of a state of deep depression. Martyn Lloyd-Jones includes the lengthy quote in his sermon on Romans 3:25-26, entitled “The Vindication of God.” The Doctor states:

We can be certain that there is nothing that the human mind can ever consider which is in any way as important as these two verses. The history of the Church shows very clearly that they have been the means that God the Holy Spirit has used to bring many a soul from darkness to light, and to give many a poor sinner his first knowledge of salvation and his first assurance of salvation.

In Romans 3:25-26, Paul writes about Christ:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Cowper would famously include the following words, which became the first verse of the hymn “There Is a Fountain”:

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Christ is our sin offering, Christ is our satisfaction, Christ is our righteousness, Christ is our life. Praise be to Him!

Selah

Selah.” This is a musical pause; the precise meaning of which is not known. Some think it simply a rest, a pause in the music; others say it means, “Lift up the strain—sing more loudly—pitch the tune upon a higher key—there is nobler matter to come, therefore retune your harps.” Harp-strings soon get out of order and need to be screwed up again to their proper tightness, and certainly our heart-strings are evermore getting out of tune, Let “Selah” teach us to pray

 

“O may my heart in tune be found
Like David’s harp of solemn sound.” 

At least we may learn that wherever we see “Selah,” we should look upon it as a note of observation. Let us read the passage which preceeds and succeeds it with greater earnestness, for surely there is always something excellent where we are required to rest and pause and meditate, or when we are required to lift up our hearts in grateful song. “SELAH.”

(from C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, in his comments on Psalm 3)

Zeal for the Lord

How zealous men have been in a false religion! “They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance” (Isaiah 46:6). The Jews did not spare any cost in their idolatrous worship. No, they “cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire to Molech” (Jer. 32:35). They were so zealous in their idol worship that they would sacrifice their sons and daughters to their false gods. How far the blind heathen went in their false zeal! When the tribunes of Rome complained that they needed gold in their treasuries to offer to Apollo, the Roman matrons plucked off their chains of gold, and rings, and bracelets—and gave them to the priests to offer up sacrifice. Were these so zealous in their sinful worship, and will you not be zealous in the worship of the true God?

Do you lose anything by your zeal? Shall it not be superabundantly recompensed? What is heaven worth? What is a sight of God worth? Was not Jesus Christ zealous for you? He sweat drops of blood, he conflicted with his Father’s wrath. How zealous he was for your redemption, and have you no zeal for him? Is there anything you yourselves hate more than dullness and slothfulness in your servants? You are weary of such servants. Do you dislike a dull spirit in others, and not in yourselves? What are all your duties without zeal but mere fancies and nonentities?

Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture (available here)

The Top Five Lies

This post at Churchleaders.com features the Top 5 Lies that Christians believe (HT: The Aquila Report). There are probably more. See what you think about these lies (some of which you may actually have believed!):

• Church is not necessary.
• All Christians need to do is be “good” or act “nice.”
• God doesn’t care about your small things.
• We believe that only pastors or those in “leadership” can, in fact, lead.
• God wants us to be happy.

The one that I might state differently is the fourth one. Certainly I think this is true: husbands/fathers need to lead in the home, older women can lead younger women per Titus 2, etc. But perhaps it could be stated differently, because there is another lie that lives beneath the surface: We believe that only pastors and those in leadership need to lead. In other words, some folks will turn over Christian responsibilities to “the experts,” resulting in such things as turning all the teaching of children over to the church (and therefore no religious instruction takes place in the home).

Of course, we run into the other ones as well (or at least I have). Neglecting church attendance is fairly common in our day. Self-righteousness and moralism have always been constant struggles in the church. And the “moral, therapeutic deism” of the last lie is a major problem today as well. But this is nothing new either, as centuries ago Thomas Brooks wrote:

A lazy Christian will always want four things – comfort, content[ment], confidence, and assurance. Assurance and joy are choice donatives [gifts] that Christ gives to laborious Christians only. The lazy Christian has his mouth full of complaints, when the active Christian has his heart full of comforts.

However, the 3rd one struck me when I read it. I remember a conversation I had with a young woman once (a nominal Roman Catholic), who told me that she prayed to St. Jude when she wanted her husband to get a certain job. I asked her why she did that, and her response was, “Because God has more important things to do than listen to my prayers.” She was believing the lie, and I am wondering if she had been taught that along the way.

Addendum: After posting this today, I found this blog post quoting singer Justin Bieber, which is especially relevant to this issue. Note the last sentence:

A lot of people who are religious, I think they get lost. They go to church just to go to church. I’m not trying to disrespect them . but for me, I focus more on praying and talking to Him. I don’t have to go to church.

In our celebrity culture, it will not shocking to find many teens emulating these sentiments in the future.

Never Quit

Let us never reckon that our work in fighting against sin — in crucifying, mortifying, and subduing it — is at an end. … We may think that we have thoroughly won the field, but there is still some reserve remaining that we did not see or know. Many conquerors have been ruined by carelessness after a victory, and many have been spiritually wounded after great successes. David’s great fall into sin followed a long profession, many experiences of God, and watchfulness in keeping himself from his iniquity. And this is part of the reason why the profession of many has declined in their old age or riper years. They have given up the work of mortifying sin before the work was finished. … It is as necessary to watch towards the end of the race as at the beginning. ‘Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth’ (Col 3:5). ~ John Owen

To continue the analogy, just as a team can dominate the majority of a game and yet lose it because of sloppy play at the end, so too can we fall into sin because of carelessness, overconfidence, or spiritual laziness (among other things). Let us not fall into these traps, but cling firmly to Christ and continue to turn from the sin which so easily entangles us.

Last Words of John Brown

This link will take you to the final pastoral letter of John Brown (of Haddington), written to his flock just before his death in 1787 (for all you ARPs, John Brown was part of the Secession Church in Scotland). He has some words that brought great conviction to this pastor:

Having through the patience and mercy of God, long laboured among you, not as I ought, far, far from it, but as I could, I must now leave you, to appear before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of my stewardship. You cannot say that I ever appeared to covet any man’s silver or gold, or apparel, or ever uttered one murmur about what you gave me; or that I sought yours, not you. You cannot charge me with idling away my devoted time in vain chat, either with you or others, or with spending it in worldly business, reading of plays, romances, or the like. If I had, what an awful appearance should I soon have before my all-seeing Judge! You cannot pretend that I spared either body or mind in the service of your souls, or that I put you off with airy conceits of man’s wisdom, or anything else than the truths of God. Though I was not ashamed, as I thought Providence called me, to give you hints of the truth presently injured, and for the support of which is the declared end of the Secession, yet I laboured chiefly to show and inculcate upon your consciences the most important truths concerning your sinfulness and misery, and the way of salvation from both through Christ, and laboured to hunt you out of your lying refuges, and give your consciences no rest but in Christ and Him crucified. The delight of my soul was to commend Him and His free and great salvation to your souls, and to direct and encourage you to receive and walk in Him.

But Brown makes it very clear where he was placing his trust:

But I have no confidence in any of these things before God as my Judge. I see such weakness, such deficiency, such unfaithfulness, such imprudence, such unfervency, and unconcern, such selfishness, in all that I have done as a minister or a Christian, as richly deserves the deepest damnation of hell. I have no hope of eternal happiness but in Jesus’ blood, which cleanseth from all sin, in redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of my sins, according to the riches of His grace. It is the everlasting covenant of God’s free grace, well ordered in all things and sure, that is all my salvation and all my desire.

And even as he faces death, he makes yet one more appeal for lost souls to trust in Christ:

Let me then beseech you, now, without a moment’s delay, to consider your ways. Listen to the Lord’s invitations! Believe His self-giving declarations and promises, which, times without number, have, with some measure of earnestness, been sounded in your ears. For the Lord’s sake, dare not, at your infinite peril, to see me again in your sins, and refusers of my glorious Redeemer and Master? Oh! give Him your hearts, give Him your hearts! I never complained of you giving me too little. Nay, I thought myself happier than most of my brethren as to all outward matters. But I always thought and complained that you did not use my Master Christ as I wished in your hearts, lives, and houses. And now I ask nothing for myself, or any of my family, but make this my only dying request to you, that you would receive my Master Christ into your hearts and houses. Could my soul speak back to you from the eternal state, could all my rotting bones and sinews, and every atom of my body, speak back to you from the grave, they should all cry, “Oh that you were wise, that you understood this, that you would consider your latter end!” Oh that you would give my Master, Christ, these ignorant, guilty, polluted, and enslaved hearts of yours, that He, as made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, might enter in and fill them for evermore with His grace and truth! Oh, say not to a dying, a dead minister, but to a living Redeemer, and His Father, and blessed Spirit, NAY.

If you can, give a few moments of your time to read this farewell letter of a minister to his congregation, and ask yourself what are indeed the most important things in this world.

Richard Sibbes and the Gospel

One of my favorite Puritans is Richard Sibbes. I found this lecture by Mark Dever (who has written an outstanding biography of Sibbes) to be quite profitable, especially when he relates the controversies in Sibbes’ time with our modern disputes. In all things, the preaching of the gospel must be central. We should always remember that.

Below is an excerpt from Sibbes’ The Excellency of the Gospel above the Law (found in vol. 4 of his Works), quoted by Dever in the lecture above. In it, Sibbes warns of the deadness of religious acts that are done apart from faith in Christ:

We ought to join with all the ordinances of God, a desire that Christ would join his Spirit, and make them effectual. We ought to come to the ordinances in a dependence upon Christ for a blessing upon them, and for his presence in them, who is the life and scope of all ; and then we should not find such dulness and deadness in them. It is the sin of this age, this formality. It is the sin of those that have any thing in them. Set desperate di’unkards and roarers and such wretches aside, as plainly discover themselves to be acted by the spirit of the devil. Take them that conform themselves in any fashion to religion, the killing sin that they lie under is this same dead formality. They will hear a sermon now and then, look on a book, and it may be pray morning and evening, but never look up to the living and quickening Spirit Jesus Christ. So that all they do is dead and loathsome, like salt that hath no savour. What is the best liquor if it hath lost its life and spirit, but flat and unsavoury : and blood when the spirits are out of it, what is it but loathsome gore! So are all their performances, even like sacrifices that had no fire in them. The Lord loathed such sacrifices as he did Cain’s ; and so he doth all our flat and lifeless services, yea and our persons too, being as Jude saith, ‘ fleshly, and not having the Spirit,’ ver. 19.

Love for Christ’s Church

A common argument of many nominal Christians is that they love Jesus but don’t care for the church. The teaching of 1 John [4:7-21] exposes the flaws of this argument, revealing it to be an unbiblical dichotomy. All who are saved by God possess the Spirit, which links them to all other people who possess the Spirit. The local church, of course, is not perfect, and some have had difficult experiences with churches they have attended. But when God saves a person, He gives them a love for His people. His people are the church.

Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards on True Christianity

What Is Heaven Like?

There is much (false) speculation as to the nature of heaven, but J.C. Ryle states rather well the sufficient view of heaven from the Scriptures, in Holiness:

This you may gather from our Lord’s words to the penitent thief: ‘This day shall you be with Me in paradise.’ And you have an expression very like it in the Epistle to the Philippines, where Paul says he has a desire to ‘depart and be with Christ’ (Phil. 1:23). … Believers after death are ‘with Christ.’ That answers many a difficult question, which otherwise might puzzle man’s busy, restless mind. The abode of dead saints, their joys, their feelings, their happiness, all seem met by this simple expression—they are ‘with Christ.’ I cannot enter into full explanations about the separate state of departed believers. It is a high and deep subject, such as man’s mind can neither grasp nor fathom. I know their happiness falls short of what it will be when their bodies are raised again, in the resurrection at the last day, and Jesus returns to earth. Yet I know also they enjoy a blessed rest, a rest from labor a rest from sorrow, a rest from pain—and a rest from sin. But it does not follow because I cannot explain these things, that I am not persuaded they are far happier than they ever were on earth. I see their happiness in this very passage they are ‘with Christ,’ and when I see that I see enough. If the sheep are with the Shepherd, if the members are with the Head, if the children of Christ’s family are with Him who loved them and carried them all the days of their pilgrimage on earth, all must be well, all must be right. I cannot describe what kind of place paradise is, because I cannot understand the condition of a soul separate from the body. But I ask no brighter view of paradise than this—that Christ is there. All other things, in the picture which imagination draws of the state between death and resurrection, are nothing in comparison of this. How He is there, and in what way He is there, I know not. Let me only see Christ in paradise when my eyes close in death, and that suffices me. Well does the psalmist say, ‘In Your presence is fullness of joy’ (Ps. 16:11). It was a true saying of a dying girl, when her mother tried to comfort her by describing what paradise would be. ‘There,’ she said to the child, ‘there you will have no pains, and no sickness; there you will see your brothers and sisters, who have gone before you, and will be always happy.’ ‘Ah, mother,’ was the reply, ‘but there is one thing better than all, and that is, Christ will be there!’

Thomas Watson likewise comments:

Those whom the world scorned, Christ will take by the hand and openly acknowledge as His, openly acknowledging them to be precious in His eyes. … Christ will vindicate them and clear their innocence. … The saints shall be fully crowned with enjoyment of God forever; they shall be in His sweet presence forever. The banner of God’s love will be eternally displayed. The joys of heaven shall be without intermission and expiration, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

To be in heaven is to be with the Lord forever, and that shall be enough for His saints.

Why Is the Virgin Birth Important?

Lord, willing I will be preaching on the topic in the title of this blog post (the Virgin Birth of Christ) tomorrow morning as we look at Matthew 1:18-25 at Midlane Park ARP Church. I will be referencing an article by Dr. Al Mohler, entitled “Must We Believe in the Virgin Birth?” In the article Dr. Mohler states:

Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no. … All those who find salvation will be saved by the atoning work of Jesus the Christ — the virgin-born Savior. Anything less than this is just not Christianity, whatever it may call itself. A true Christian will not deny the Virgin Birth.

Not just on December 25, but every Lord’s Day, we must remember that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). If there were no Incarnation, there would be no crucifixion, no resurrection, no atoning work of Christ, no imputed righteousness of Christ, etc. So let us behold the glory of the only begotten Son of God as His people gather to worship Him on the Lord’s Day.