Law and Gospel In a Nutshell

To run and work the law commands,
Yet gives me neither feet nor hands;
But better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly and gives me wings.

You see, the law has no power to give what it demands.

The gospel does.

That is why the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." Romans 1:16

--HT: Between Two Worlds (poem attributed to John Berridge)

The Big Picture: Very, Very Good News

“The purpose of creation, redemption, and consummation are seen holistically as God’s purpose to glorify Christ by fulfilling the Adamic creation mandate, the universal Noahic promise, the patriarchal covenants, and the Israelite monarchy in Him, thus exalting Jesus as preeminent over the entire cosmos as the agent of creation, the true imago Dei, the Davidic subjugator of all rival powers, the firstborn of the eschatological resurrection from the dead, and the atonement through whom final cosmic peace is found at last (Col. 1:15-23).”

- Russell D. Moore, The Kingdom of Christ (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004), 108.


“The resurrection and exaltation of Christ accomplish a new unity between heaven and earth, for Christ now has a heavenly body (1 Cor. 15:42ff), a body of glory (Phil. 3:21) and His humanity is now in heaven (Phil. 3:20f; Col. 3:1; Eph. 1:20ff; 6:9), and both serve as a pledge of the ultimate unity of the cosmos in Christ (Eph. 1:10).”

- Andrew T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1981), 192.

HT: Of First Importance

Faith Is A Step Into the Light

"Faith is not a leap into the dark.

Faith is a step into the light."

-- Craig Troxel

"

The Gospel Is Everything to A Christian

When we speak of the centrality of the gospel we refer to the fact that every aspect of our salvation stems from the gospel. We mean that the gospel is truly the power of God for salvation in that it is through the gospel we are called, regenerated, converted, sanctified, and finally glorified. We mean that Jesus Christ, God come in the flesh, as he lived, died and rose again, gave meaning to all history and human existence. We mean that the gospel is the only means we have of beginning, continuing, and persevering in the Christian life . . . . When we approach sanctification as attainable by any means other than the gospel of Christ–the same gospel by which we are converted–we have departed from the teaching of the New Testament.

(Goldsworthy, The Gospel in Revelation, 171)

--HT: The Road to Emmaus

More Gospel, More Doing!

I promise you, some of the best people in your churches are getting tired. They don’t need another rah-rah pep talk. They don’t need to hear more statistics and more stories Sunday after Sunday about how bad everything is in the world. They need to hear about Christ’s death and resurrection. They need to hear how we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. They need to hear the old, old story once more. Because the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.

Kevin DeYoung

--HT: Between Two Worlds

I'd Rather Have Jesus

The wonderful talented George Beverly Shea is one hundred years old.

He knows whom he has believed. Do we?



HT: Slice of Laodicea

Come to Him

--HT: Defcon

What Lies Ahead: "Christianity Loves a Crumbling Empire"

This article by the Internet Monk is worth reading completely. I think it is mostly on-target. The evan-jelly-fish church in America is quite possibly in for a serious and rude awakening.

What is the answer? A return to solid, Biblical theology. In a word, think Biblically and act accordingly:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.

The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

The Gospel and Anarchy

If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.

— Daniel Webster

The Inaugural Prayer That Should Have Been Given, But Wasn't

Oh God, our Creator, Sustainer, and Judge, You have blessed America most extraordinarily. No other nation has ever enjoyed such resources, opportunities and freedoms.

Even so, we call to mind what Your only Son, God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, told us: "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required" (Luke 12:48). You have given us much — and what have we done with it?

No other nation in history, since your Son walked the earth, has had such access to Your inerrant Word, the Bible; nor such liberty to preach it and teach it. Against the backdrop of world history, our freedoms are simply staggering. Yet the moral corruption in Washington is rivaled by the spiritual corruption in our pulpits, and in our pews.

Preachers twist and compromise Your truth, selling out on their calling so that they can be loved by those who hate You. People who name Your name choose to ignore Your words, and love the world, love to be stylish. Oh God, grant repentance to us who claim to know You. Inflame preachers with love for you that cannot be bridled nor tamed, love that shows in fearless and uncompromising proclamation of your Word. Inflame believers with love for Christ that cannot be overlooked nor misunderstood, love that shows in lives that reflect the character and revealed wisdom of God.

And God, we confess with shame that, though we are the richest nation on earth, we are among the cruelest when it comes to our most helpless and needy. Thousands of unborn children are killed each day, oh Lord, slain on the altar of our selfishness and lusts. If they are inconvenient or imperfect, we kill them. Our hands are bloody. We are deeply guilty, yet do not even blush. I cannot ask that You forgive us, much less that You bless us with further prosperity to squander. I ask, instead, that You grant us to feel our shame, that You grant us repentance, so that You might forgive us.

Lord, we have sinned. I have sinned. President Obama has sinned. All who hear me have sinned. We know better. Knowing Your Word is not above our pay-grade. We can offer no excuse.

But thank You that You, the God who is holy and just, and loving and merciful, sent Your only Son to give Himself a ransom-price to secure freedom and forgiveness for all who would believe in Him with repentant faith. Thank You for Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, crucified for sinners, dead, buried, and risen to life on the third day. Thank You that He is at your right hand, ever living to grant forgiveness and life to all who call on His name in faith. Thank You for that glorious promise.

And so, our God, we pray that President Obama will know that transforming faith in Jesus. We pray that he will humble himself at the cross of Christ, and know You as Savior and Lord. We pray that Your word will transform his thinking, that Your word will be his law. The king's heart is in Your hands, oh God — and so, surely, is the president's. We pray You grant him this saving grace.

America has been called a shining city on a hill. If that was ever true, the light is guttering, dark and dim now. Oh God, grant repentance to this land, that our spiritual prosperity might outstrip our material prosperity, to the glory of the living, triune God of Scripture.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, the only name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved.

Amen.

HT: Pyromaniacs

The Gospel Is the Greatest Thing in the World

(HT: CRN)

Rescuing the Gospel from Evangelicals: Kirk Cameron & John MacArthur On...TBN?

TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) has become known for false teaching, but Pastor John MacArthur and Kirk Cameron (Fireproof) hit the nail on the head here.

This is the uncompromised Gospel!

If you haven't seen the movie Fireproof yet, don't wait another minute.

(HT: Puritan Fellowship)

Spurgeon on Postmodernism: Stand Fast for the Truth

This is an age in which truth must be maintained zealously, vehemently, continually. Playing fast and loose as many do, believing this to-day and that to-morrow, is the sure mark of children of wrath; but having received the truth, to hold fast the very form of it, as Paul bids Timothy to do, is one of the duties of heirs of heaven. Stand fast for truth, and may God give the victory to the faithful.

We must believe the gospel and maintain it, for it is committed to our trust.

-- Charles Spurgeon

HT: Pyromaniacs

Finding America in Romans Chapter One

In this must-see video, James White speaks with great eloquence and power on the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the United States, and finds America in the year 2008 to be right smack dab in the middle of...Romans chapter one:



Spread the word.

Break the Neck of the Donkey? What's That All About?

The inestimable Pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon expounds the Gospel where one might not expect to find it -- in the Old Testament law of sacrifice.

"THE FIRSTBORN OF A DONKEY YOU SHALL REDEEM WITH A LAMB, OR IF YOU WILL NOT REDEEM IT YOU SHALL BREAK ITS NECK." Exodus 34:20

Every firstborn creature must be the Lord's; but since the donkey was unclean, it could not be presented in sacrifice. What then? Should it be allowed to go free from the universal law? By no means. God allows for no exceptions. The donkey is His due, but He will not accept it; He will not void the claim, but yet He cannot be pleased with the victim. As a result, no way of escape remained but redemption-the creature must be saved by the substitution of a lamb in its place; or if not redeemed, it must die. My soul, here is a lesson for you.

That unclean animal is you. You are justly the property of the Lord who made you and preserves you, but you are so sinful that God will not, cannot, accept you; and it has come to this-the Lamb of God must stand in your place or you must die eternally. Let all the world know of your gratitude to that spotless Lamb who has already bled for you and so redeemed you from the fatal curse of the law.

Oh, the wonderful truth that indeed, Christ is in all the Scriptures! (Luke 24:27)

The Truth About Unity

Several months ago, during a conversation with one of the elders at our former church, the elder quoted to me John 17:22 (Jesus praying "that they may be one"). The elder intended this to chide me for participating in something he and the other elders saw as disturbing the unity of that church.

By His grace, the Lord led me to respond to this elder with John 17:17 a few verses before -- Jesus praying, "Sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth."

Then, this morning, I saw this quote from Spurgeon, in which he makes the same connection the Lord had shown me during my conversation with this elder:

To remain divided is sinful! Did not our Lord pray, that they may
be one, even as we are one”? (John 17:22). A chorus of ecumenical
voices keep harping the unity tune. What they are saying is,
“Christians of all doctrinal shades and beliefs must come together
in one visible organization, regardless… Unite, unite!” Such
teaching is false, reckless and dangerous. Truth alone must
determine our alignments. Truth comes before unity. Unity without truth is hazardous. Our Lord’s prayer in John 17 must be read in its full context. Look at verse 17: “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.” Only those sanctified through the Word can be one in Christ. To teach otherwise is to betray the Gospel.

Thanks be to God.

-Charles H. Spurgeon.

(HT: CRN)

Justification Is By Grace Alone

As Dr. R.C. Sproul has noted, the doctrine of justification by grace alone has not penetrated our culture.

Maybe this will help:





(HT: Defcon)

Who Are You, O Man, To Answer Back to God?

If you want to ask God, "Why did you permit this?" and "Why didn't you do that?" then my advice is to "Be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20) by believing in Jesus Christ as the only Savior, repenting and confessing that He is Lord.

Then you will have all eternity to ask God all your questions!

(HT: Proclaim His Word)

Case Closed: "Salvation is of the Lord"

If you think the gospel is, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," then you need to see this.

In fact, everyone needs to see this:

Naming Names

Berit Kjos in a superb piece titled, "How To Resist the Pull of the Crowd" writes:

"Our anchor and foundation is God's unchanging Word...Postmodern leaders resist such truth. It doesn't fit the collective thinking of the new managed society. It clashes with the pluralistic vision of unity in diversity: all gods are equally valid. All lead to the same end.

Unlike noble visions and humanist idealism, God's actual Word can't be manipulated by today's clever facilitators. His unchanging truth is poison to the consensus process...As the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago,

"...the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things..." 2 Timothy 4:2-5."

This Scripture gives us three crucial facts about pagans in the last days:

1. They will follow many teachers;

2. They will not listen to God's truth;

3. They will turn instead to fables -- such as the myth that "all religions pray to the same god."

So, who are these false teachers? Who are these "postmodern leaders?"

It is time to name names. They include:

President Bush
Oprah Winfrey
Joel Osteen
Ravi Zacharias
James Dobson
Rick Warren
Robert Schuller
Billy Graham
John Armstrong

...and many others.

Each of these has stated or implied the myth that "all roads lead to the same god." Their public statements are thoroughly documented. Many of them are quoted or linked on this blog.

So what do we do about it?

Berit Kjos gives the only true answer:

"So how can we use truth to ward off contemporary myths, lies and distortions? We read, study, memorize and follow God's Word. It builds an unshakable foundation for our thoughts and values."

In other words, we put into practice the teaching of God's word in Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

We also follow the teaching of Scripture, "Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you..." II Cor. 6:17