Random Puritan Quote

"The very breath
with which
we complain
is a blessing."

Richard Allestree in The Art of Contentment

Pentecost: What Does This Mean?

Our God is a God of continuity and continuance so to really understand the meaning of Pentecost today, we must look at what it meant to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai and the apostles in the Upper Room. Pentecost has always been about the continuing presence of God with His people, the challenge of the harvest and the call to care for one another.



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Memorial Day Music Tributes

Sunday Spurgeon

Again, I hear the voice of lamentation from some Brother who cries, “It is not merely that error spreads in the land, but the Church is lukewarm in these times. Jesus does not seem to be loved as once He was. The heroic spirit, the martyr spirit, has departed from us. Christians seek to get gain and wrap themselves up in garments of fine linen and fare sumptuously every day. They are as earthly and as carnal as the rest of mankind. How is the fine gold become dim, how is the most fine gold changed!” Here, again, the warmest advocate for the Church must confess that the indictment is true. This is a lukewarm age. “I would you were either cold or hot,” might be addressed to the Churches of this day as justly as to the Church of Laodicea.

We will neither insist upon it, nor bring proofs about it, nor will we argue against it—but we will admit the charge just as the accuser brings it—and what then? Though I see much cause for our grieved feelings, I see still no cause for our being dispirited. The Church has been in a like listless state before, and out of that languid condition God has roused her up and brought her forth. I am sure I need not unroll a page of history and ask you to glance your eye down it except for a second—for again and again you will see it has occurred that the Church has fallen asleep and her ministers have become as mute inglorious neuters—destitute of zeal, having no ardent passion and giving themselves up to no arduous enterprise. But it is only needed once more for God to make bare His arm, and His Church will be full of life and of power—renewing the vigor of youth—abounding in hope and intrepid in courage!

Must you have a modern instance? Think of the days of Wesley and Whitefield. When they began to preach, gross darkness had covered this land. They did not appear to be the men who were likely to remove the veil that covered the nation, yet God used their very feebleness and eccentricity. He used everything about the men to be the means of restoring the Church, reinforcing her ranks and augmenting her energies. Therefore, be of good cheer! Though the Church should slip and slide again, and disgrace herself by her lack of zeal, yet she is the spouse of Christ—and He will not divorce her—He will turn to her in mercy yet again!

Not On My Reading List...

HT: Next Wave

Just In Case You Ever Needed To...

Boost Car Remote With Your Skull

...and He gave gifts to men

This sermon on Ascension Sunday considers Ephesians 4:7-13 and asks what are the some of the gifts given to the church and to the individual believer by the ascended Lord.




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"Footprint of Jesus" from Chapel of the Ascension on Mount of Olives

Sunday Spurgeon

Always take revenge on Satan, if he defeats you, by trying to do ten times more good than you did before. It is in some such way that a dear Brother now preaching the Gospel, whom God has blessed with a very considerable measure of success, may trace the opening of his career to a circumstance that occurred to myself.

Sitting in my pulpit one evening, in a country village where I had to preach, my text slipped from my memory, and with the text seemed to go all that I had thought to speak upon. A rare thing to happen to me. But I sat utterly confounded. I could find nothing to say. With strong crying I lifted up my soul to God to pour out again within my soul the Living Water that it might gush forth from me for others.

And I accompanied my prayer with a vow that if Satan’s enmity thus had brought me low, I would take so many fresh men whom I might meet with during the week and train them for the ministry—so that with their hands and tongues I would avenge myself on the Philistines. The Brother I have alluded to came to me the next morning. I accepted him at once as one whom God had sent, and I helped him, and others after him, to prepare for the service, and to go forth in the Savior’s name to preach the Gospel of the Grace of God.

Often when we fear we are defeated, we ought to say, “I will do all the more. Instead of dropping from this work, now will I make a general levy and a sacred conscription upon all the powers of my soul. And I will gather up all the strength I ever had in reserve and make, from this moment, a tremendous life-long effort to overcome the powers of darkness, and win for Christ fresh trophies of victory.”

Armed Forces Day

Three Questions On Mother's Day

This Mother's Day message from 2 Kings 4:8-36 looks at three questions today's mothers need to answer in order to find shalom (peace) in their lives and families.




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Why Do The Chinese Fear Me?

Are the Chinese Communists censoring your site? Test your URL here.

Chris Sligh Communion Song

Some of you may know that former American Idol contestant Chris Sligh is a worship leader at Seacoast Church in Greenville and is a member of the band Half Past Forever. You can read more about the band and their new album here.

Chris recently made available a wonderful song for communion celebrations. You can hear it here and download it and the words here.

When Life Caves In (2)

Psalm 142 spoke of the reality of the cave experience in our lives, but God doesn't intend for His children to be cave-dwellers. In Psalm 57, David shows us some steps that we can take to climb out of the cave and experience a renewed blessing.




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70 Years Ago Today - Titanic of The Skies Explodes

Get Your Reformed T-Shirts Here!

I gotta get this! A must have for my vacation and casual Fridays in the office this Summer. More "Homeboy" designs can be found here. Including such great reformed thinkers as John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Martyn Lloyd -Jones, Richard Sibbes (and a whole bunch of other puritan divines), Matthew Henry, St. Augustine, John Bunyan, Abraham Kuyper and a many more. Check it out.

Random Adrianisms

Here are some great quotes from the late Adrian Rogers:

Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God?

God grades on the Cross not on the curve.

Most people want to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.

I read other books. The Bible reads me.

If you have a Bible that's falling apart you'll have a life that's not.

You can save a lot of time waiting on God.

If you need encouragement, give it. If you need love, give it. Whatever you need, give it away.

Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.

If Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you busy.

It's what you sow that multiplies, not what you keep in the barn.

If you live for this world, you are in the junk business. It's all just premature junk.

There was a time when you were not. There never will be a time when you will not be.

We live in a day where a hero is a sandwich, life is a magazine, power is a candy bar, joy is a detergent, sin is a perfume, a star is an actress who's been married three times,
and the real thing is a soft drink.

You can't sweeten the well by painting the pump.

God does not flunk any of His children. He just re-enrolls them.

If you were sinking in quicksand, the devil would pat you on the head.

HT: Glenn Brooke over at Be Bold, Be Gentle.

A Crime To Speak The Truth?

Dr. Robert Gagnon paints a frightening scenario if the Congress passes legislation making homosexuality a protected legal category:

The U.S. House of Representatives will be voting this week, possibly Thursday, on the passage of a “Hate Crimes” bill that seeks to make “sexual orientation” (i.e. homosexuality, bisexuality) and “gender identity” (i.e. cross-dressing, transsexuality) specially protected legal categories (HR 1592: the so-called “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act”).

At first glance one might ask, “Who could be against criminalizing group-hate?” The problem comes in the interpretation of “hate.” As regards the volatile issues of homosexuality and transgenderism, one person’s definition of love is defined by another as hate. If you believe that true love means loving homosexual and transsexual persons but not their error—as Augustine once said, “Love not in the person his error, but the person; for the person God made, the error the person himself made”—then it is important for you to know that this ‘Hate’ Crimes bill will legally treat your love as hate. This is not pluralism, tolerance, and diversity. It is oppression.

Since genuine intimidation and violence is already covered by the existing legal code, the ultimate purpose of such a bill can only be to intimidate those who speak out against the endorsement of homosexual practice and transsexualism. In the current political climate—obvious cases in point are repeated oppressions of any who dare speak against homosexual practice in Canada, England, and Scandinavia, to say nothing of sectors of the United States—one cannot assume that there is a common definition of what constitutes hate against homosexual and transsexual persons. Any public words against homosexual practice will be treated legally as words that incite others to violence and/or discrimination against homosexual persons, and thus subject to criminal prosecution.

All that you need to know about such a hate-speech bill can be summed up by the intense resistance on the part of Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee to any attempt to safeguard religious liberties (note that all 23 Democrats in the committee supported the Hate Crimes bill; all 17 Republicans opposed it). They refused to allow an amendment that stated: “Nothing in this section limits the religious freedom of any person or group under the Constitution.” The Traditional Values Coalition reports the following telling exchange:

Congressman Gohmert asked, “If a minister was giving a sermon, a Bible study or any kind of written or spoken message saying that homosexuality was a serious sin and a person in the congregation went out and committed a crime against a homosexual would the minister be charged with the crime of incitement?” . . .And finally Democrat Congressman Arthur Davis from Alabama spoke up and said, “Yes.” (“TVC Report from the Judiciary Committee Hearing on the ‘Hate Crimes’ Bill, H.R. 1592,” Apr. 25, 2007, online here)

You can read the full article and the list of possible results here.

UPDATE: Chuck Colson weighs in on the subject here.