"The gentle kindness which bruises us"

We call those things mercies which please us, ease us, suit our wants, and fall in with our cravings. Truly they are so, but not less gracious are those benefits which cross us, pain us, and lay us low. The tender love which chastises us the gentle kindness which bruises us, the fond affection which crushes us to the ground -- these we do not so readily recount; yet is there as much of divine love in a smart as in a sweet, as great a depth of tenderness in buffeting as in consoling. We must count our crosses, diseases and pains if we would number up our blessings. Doubtless it is a mercy to be spared affliction, but he would be a wise man who should tell which of the two was the greater boon -- to be for the present without chastisement or to be chastened. We judge that in either case it is well with the righteous, but we will not have a word said to the disparagment of affliction. Granted that the cross is very bitter, we maintain with equal confidence that it is also very sweet.

Charles Spurgeon from The Full Harvest

"The aching may remain, but the breaking does not"

The Silence of God
by Andrew Peterson

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
'Cause we all get lost sometimes...

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

We're all adolescents now

From The Juvenilization Of American Christianity:

"Juvenilization happened when no one was looking. In the first stage, Christian youth leaders created youth-friendly versions of the faith in a desperate attempt to save the world. Some hoped to reform their churches by influencing the next generation. Others expected any questionable innovations to stay comfortably quarantined in youth rallies and church basements. Both groups were less concerned about long-term consequences than about immediate appeals to youth.

"In the second stage, a new American adulthood emerged that looked a lot like the old adolescence. Fewer and fewer people outgrew the adolescent Christian spiritualities they had learned in youth groups; instead, churches began to cater to them."

The Constant Reader

Reading up on HOPE...

The One Year Book of Hope by Nancy Guthrie

Too Good To Be True by Michael Horton

Hope: The Best Of Things by Joni Eareckson Tada

Night Of Weeping, Morning Of Joy by Horatius Bonar

The Last Enemy by Michael Witmer

Sermon Audio

On Sunday I preached part 23 of our current series through Philippians. It is entitled "Strengthened For Contentment" and can be listened to or downloaded HERE.

Silent in Suffering

It is not easy to suffer. No affliction is pleasant. But there is something especially difficult about suffering at the hands or by the words of others. Our first inclination is to defend ourselves. And, certainly, there is a place for that. There were times when the Apostle Paul offered a hearty defense of himself against his accusers. He did this when the accusations against him would harm the church. For instance, when the "super apostles" were troubling the Corinthian church with their version of the prosperity gospel part of their strategy was to discredit Paul and his preaching of the cross. For their authority to be established, they first had to demolish Paul's. So in order to protect the church from error and destruction Paul had to defend his status as a true apostle of the Lord Jesus. He had to deny the lies that he was preaching to enrich himself. He had to deny the accusations that he was hiding a secret life of shame.

However, there are times when we simply must be silent in the face of slander. I'm not sure where to draw the line. But Jason Helopoulos offers some wise counsel. In suffering silently, Helopoulos writes, "I have the opportunity to":

look to Christ who suffered silently (Isaiah 53:7)

become more like Christ as I endure suffering (1 Peter 2:21)

and privilege of suffering with Christ (1 Peter 4:13)

complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions (Colossians 1:24)

to be tested by fire, so the genuineness of my faith will shine to the glory and honor of Christ

     (1  Peter 1:7)

remind myself that the Great Judge knows what is true (Matthew 12:36)

suffer with Him—knowing that as I do, I shall be glorified with Him (Romans 8:17)

suffer as it is a gracious thing in the sight of God (1 Peter 2:20)

suffer as it is a blessing and a sign that the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon me (1 Peter 4:14)

be reminded that my current suffering is nothing compared to the glory that awaits (1 Peter 5:10)

truly love my enemies (Matthew 5:44)

know more fully the extent of Christ’s love towards me (Ephesians 3:14ff)

learn afresh how dependent I am upon Christ (John 15:5)

be identified with Christ (John 15:18ff)

test my desire for God’s glory rather than man’s approval (Isaiah 51:7-8)

Fear of man must not silence you when you should speak. But neither should it lead you to speak when you should not. And suffering for the sake of Christ often means remaining silent in the midst of that suffering. It is hard and bitter. But as our minds are gripped by these truths, that which is hard and bitter can at the same time be sweet and easy to digest.
Read the whole post HERE.

Pro-Life Ethics

Thanks to Justin Taylor for posting these excellent lectures on Pro-Life ethics from Scott Klusendorf:

No Place For Truth?

Thomas Oden is my favorite Wesleyan theologian. He was a liberal in the sixties. But something happened. He was driven away from theological liberalism to embrace Protestant Orthodoxy. Oden writes with clarity and passion about the need for the Mainline denominations to return to the truth. Until then, there is no ground for unity.

In Turning Around The Mainline Oden writes:

Oldline ecumenical debate and planning are prone to misfire through a fundamental misunderstanding of the relation of unity and truth: They do no seek unity based on truth.

Four modern ecumenical arguments in particular misfire, as shown by David Mills. They even make Christian disunity more likely. These four following arguments have prevailed in liberal ecumenism, each unintentionally eliciting disunity. Each is a mistake “if-then” correlation:

1. If we can just get together on some common ethical standards, then we will therefore achieve the unity of believers.

2. If we could have the same open ecumenical feelings or experiences, then we would feel our unity.

3. If we could just be open to dialogue, then we would grow toward unity.

4. If we merge the separate institutions based on different memories created by the Spirit, then we would experience our unity through an institution, and thus we now must renew our commitment to the institutional vestiges of ecumenism.

All these attempts are alike in one way: they put unity ahead of truth. They squander the truth to achieve a superficial unity. All are mistaken. All spawn disillusionment with efforts at Christian unity. Together they have resulted in the ecumenical turbulence that now buffets us.

All misfire for the same reason: they base unity on something other than the truth, by avoiding the only basis from which Christian unity can emerge—that is the revealed Word whose hearing is enabled by the Holy Spirit and received through faith. (111)

HT: Kevin DeYoung

Resolute

This quarter's issue of Southern Seminary Magazine is worth reading (as they all are).

Be sure especially to read:

"Resolute About Biblical Authority Amidst Compromise And Confusion In The Church" by Al Mohler (pp. 36-38)

"Black And White And Red All Over: Why Racial Justice Is A Gospel Issue" by Russell Moore (pp. 40-41)

"Resolute In A Gender-Confused Culture" by Denny Burk (pp. 44-45)

What to do when you are depressed...

Good words HERE from Brian Croft over at his excellent site Practical Shepherding.

God's Great Story

Sunday's Sermon

On Sunday I preached part 22 in our current series through Philippians. It is entitled "What Do You Think" and can be listened to or downloaded HERE.

There And Back Again?

The "I've been to heaven and back" book phenomena continues to grow. There is yet another one which has hit the New York Times bestseller list. Now we can read about Mary C. Neal's trip to heaven in her book "To Heaven And Back." Evangelicals love this stuff! The books by Don Piper and Todd Burpo have numerous spin-offs. I recently saw a big, colorful Heaven Is For Real For Kids in a local Barnes and Noble. If I were cynical I'd conclude that all these daily thoughts, calendars, journals, kids and women's editions were crass attempts to make more money off evangelical's lack of discernment. But I'm not cynical so I'd never conclude that. Personally, I'd like to see a Mixed Martial Arts edition of one of these trip to heaven books. That's a growing market after all. Now, just watch some enterprising young fella at Multnomah or Zondervan steal this idea.

Tim Challies, who has written well about the dangers of this nonsense, has a fresh post on Miss Neal's foray into the wacky world of Christian publishing.

The most recent heaven tourist is Mary C. Neal. Much like Todd Burpo, who is responsible for taking his son’s adventures to print, Neal only decided to write about her experiences many years after the fact, after all those other “I went to heaven” books began to sell in the hundreds of thousands. But that’s definitely just coincidence. She initially self-published her book To Heaven and Back, but once it started generating buzz (i.e. selling lots and lots of copies), Waterbrook Multnomah stooped down and scraped it off the bottom of a shoe somewhere, and promptly re-issued it. With the extra marketing nudge, it has now made its debut on the New York Times list of bestsellers. I gave it a skim—I just couldn’t bear to read it all the way—and found that it is much the same as the others. In fact, it may be worse than the others in that it contains even less Christian theology, less gospel and far more New Age, sub-Christian nonsense. That a publisher of Christian books would even consider taking this to print is appalling.

Challies goes on to explain well why these sorts of stories are dangerous for Christians to ingest.

I do not believe that Don Piper or Colton Burpo or Mary Neal or Bill Wiese visited the afterlife. They can tell me all the stories they want, and then can tell those stories in a sincere tone, but I do not believe them (even when they send me very angry and condescending emails that accuse me of character assassination). I am not necessarily saying that these people are liars—just that I am under no obligation to believe another person’s experience. Here’s why:

In the first place, we have no reason to believe or expect that God will work in this way—that he will call one of us to the afterlife and then send us back to our old bodies. The Bible says that it is for man to die once and then to experience the resurrection. There are many experiences we can have in a near-death state I am sure—dream-like experiences that may even seem real—but the Bible gives us no reason to believe that a person will truly die, truly experience the afterlife, and then return. Those who have a biblical understanding of life and death and heaven and hell will know that for a person to die and visit heaven, to experience sinlessness and the presence of Jesus Christ—for that person it would be the very height of cruelty to then demand that they return to earth. None of these books are at all consistent with a robust theology of heaven and hell, of the work of Jesus Christ, of the existence of indwelling sin. On the surface they may seem compelling, but in reality they raise far more questions than the few they may appear to answer.

In the second place, the very idea of God calling a person to heaven and back and then having that person share his experience in order to bolster our faith is the exact opposite of what the Lord desires for us. We have no reason to look to another person’s experience of heaven in order to prove that heaven is real or hell is real. The Bible promises blessings on those who do not see and yet believe. Our hope is not to be in the story of a minister or toddler or doctor or anyone else who insists they have been to heaven; our hope is to be in Jesus Christ as God has graciously revealed him to us in the Bible. Faith is believing that what God says in his Word is true and without error. You dishonor God if you choose to believe what the Bible says only when you receive some kind of outside verification. You dishonor God if you need this kind of outside verification.

A question remains: How do I respond to a Christian who has read these books and who finds great joy or comfort in them? You point that person to what is true. You will need to be careful with tone and timing, but ultimately, it will be a blessing for any Christian to direct his faith to the worthy object of faith. Faith will be strengthened by reading the Bible and believing it. Faith will be weakened by reading the Bible and believing it only after reading 90 Minutes in Heaven. You can serve any Christian by directing him to the Bible and helping him to see that we are called to believe God on the basis of what he says in his Word, not on the basis of another person’s experience. 90 Minutes in Heaven and Heaven Is For Real and all the rest are not books that beautify the doctrine of heaven, but books that attack the doctrine of Scripture. The Bible insists that it is enough, that it is sufficient, that we have no need for further special revelation from God; these books insist that it is not.

Read the entire post HERE.

In praise of labels

Dr. Peter Jensen the archbishop (Anglican) of Sydney, Australia, is a courageous leader and an admirable preacher. He also does not mind telling you just exactly what he is. In a series of messages from 2007 Dr. Jensen explains why he is Protestant (and not Catholic), Reformed (and not Arminian), and evangelical (in the historic sense of that term).

1 - Why I Am A Protestant Christian 
2 - Why I Am A Reformed Christian 
3 - Why I Am An Evangelical Christian