 |
| Modules | |
| Who's Online | |
There are currently, 10 guest(s) and 0 member(s) that are online.
You are Anonymous user. You can register for free by clicking here | |
| Languages | |
|
Select Interface Language:
| |
| |
 | Did God Foreordain Evil and Evil Doers? |
 I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these. (Isaiah 45:7)
The attacks of 9/11, killing nearly three thousand people, were acts of pure evil. The tsunami that washed over much of the Indian Ocean in December, 2004 killing 300,000 people, and the earthquake that struck Haiti in January, 2010 yielding an estimated 230,000 deaths were acts of untold suffering and misery. Did God foreordain the evil of 9/11? Did he foreordain the suffering and death from these so called natural disasters?
Some say that God had nothing to do with any of it, that the devil is the catalyst for all evil and suffering. Others say there is no rhyme or reason for anything, good or bad, that happens in the world. It simply is fate. Some believe man is totally free and can do as he pleases. Consequently, because God made him that way, God does not know what man will do, he does not know what tomorrow may bring. Others say that God allows evil and evil doers, kind of like a policeman who sees a drug deal going down and approaches three men to make an arrest, but seeing their assault rifles when he has only a pistol, knowing he is out-gunned, allows the drug deal to continue.
David Hume, the Scottish philosopher and sceptic, along with Bertrand Russell who wrote a book entitled Why I Am not a Christian, argued that the presence of evil and suffering proves that God does not exist. Their argument goes like this, 'If God wants to stop evil, but cannot do it, then he is impotent. If God can stop evil, but chooses not to do so, then he is malevolent.' Both C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller, however, argue just the opposite.1 How do we to know something is evil or unjust unless we have God’s law written on our hearts? The very fact that people are angry at injustice — when hearing of small children being sexually assaulted and murdered — does more to prove the existence of God than to deny it.
|
|
|
Posted by annc on Wednesday, June 02 @ 10:25:49 CDT (86 reads)
(Read More... | 9017 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| To talk about revival is to talk superlatives, for revival is Christianity taken |
To talk about revival is to talk superlatives, for revival is Christianity taken to a heightened intensity. God never does more for his church than when he revitalises her with the breath of heaven. In the midst of the years he 'makes known' (Habakkuk 3:2). We then experience more of his grace and power than at all other times.
Defined
This serves to remind us of what revival is. We can define it like this: 'When ordinary spiritual conditions are intensified to the extraordinary.' Hence the title of this article. We are not talking about a difference in kind from the norm; rather a difference in degree - although a very great degree. In revival God pours out the Holy Spirit and phenomenal results follow.
One outcome of revival is the extraordinary conversions wrought; another is the exceptional recovery of things that have declined in the church. So the chief benefits are vast numbers brought into the church, and the church itself raised up to new heights of blessedness.
|
|
|
Posted by annc on Monday, March 08 @ 10:59:56 CST (139 reads)
(Read More... | 19279 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| From Grief to Glory* - A Review by Sarah Pawlak |
I sat down to read From Grief to Glory on a busy day, expecting to read only a chapter or so. As I began reading, I reprioritized my agenda and got through the entire book (and a stack of tissues) in one sitting. I expected this book to be good, but I did not expect to be so affected by the testimonies of such serious, historical theologians. This slim, 214-page volume was profoundly healing and encouraging for this infertility-worn seminary student and would make an excellent addition to any church or counselling library.
Author James W. Bruce III, married to Joni, works as an attorney and serves as an elder at Grace Bible Church of Oklahoma City. His middle son, John Cameron Bruce, lived a short life of only fifty-five days during the winter of 1997. It was Bruce's deep sorrow over this dear boy's death that encouraged him to seek out the comfort and consolation that God has extended to Christians throughout history, appropriate it for himself and share it with others — for the glory of God and the good of his brothers and sisters in Christ.
This text features the succinct, yet moving biographies of significant historical Christians who have grieved the loss of a young child, including: John Bunyan, Martin Luther, Robert L. Dabney, Philip Melanchthon, C. H. Spurgeon, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Bradford, John Calvin, Matthew Henry, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Lemuel Haynes, Frederick Douglass, George Müller, John Owen, Samuel Rutherford, John Flavel, Benjamin Morgan Palmer, Thomas Boston, John Brown, Hetty Wesley, Selina Hastings, Fanny Crosby, as well as the author's own testimony.
|
|
|
Posted by annc on Wednesday, December 30 @ 08:49:56 CST (161 reads)
(Read More... | 6596 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| We Need the Ghost |
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).
We must preach Christ crucified. This is not limited to pastors and missionaries.1 It is clear that disciple-making, including the task of evangelizing, is part and parcel of our sanctification. We are commanded to take Jesus to the nations, moving out through the concentric circles of our lives — to our children, grandchildren, extended family, neighbours, friends, work associates, city, nation, and world. But we are cowards, largely unmoved by what we read in Scripture of the impending judgment on all outside the kingdom of God. Besides, the task is an impossible one. We are doomed to failure unless God works among us. Why? Man is born rebellious to God. He is stiff-necked and does not want Christ. Paul says that the natural man does not receive the things of God because they are foolishness to him (1 Cor. 2:14). He says that the devil has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they do not see the glory of the gospel of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4ff). And what keeps him away from Christ? His pride and ignorance. The Scottish and French Enlightenment, as well as modern Science and Logical Positivism,2 have largely been destroyed by Post Modernism,3 and this continues to embolden man to believe he is the measure of all things. Man’s pride and ignorance lead to apathy. He is unaware of his impending doom. He thinks such talk of hell and judgment is at the least quaint and superstitious, and at the worst, downright harmful and hateful.
The rejection of Biblical Christianity, while always present in America, began to gain speed in the late eighteenth century, growing all the way through the end of the nineteenth century. It was encouraged by the creeping Unitarianism of William Ellery Channing, Horace Mann, and Horace Bushnell. The great New England cultural and educational ethos, founded on seventeenth century Puritan Calvinism, gave way to a rejection of Calvinism that taught original sin, total depravity, and the need for the new birth. They kept the desire for knowledge but rejected the foundation of that knowledge — Holy Scripture and what it says about man, God, and culture.
What does this mean for us today? Our task is humanly impossible. As the old black preachers used to say, 'We must have the Ghost.' Without the Holy Ghost, without God working through the third person of the Godhead, we are doomed to failure. In Acts 10 Peter is led by God to Cornelius’ household in Caesarea. It is clear to him that God has opened the door of the gospel to the God-fearers, Gentiles who embrace Judaism. So he begins to preach to them, saying that Jesus, who was baptized and anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, went about doing good, overcoming the works of the devil. How many times have I read Acts 10! I have preached on it, yet I had never seen this statement of Christ’s anointing with the Spirit and power. How is it that Jesus needs to be anointed with power and the Spirit? Certainly he did not need this in his deity, but apparently he did in his humanity. Think about it — if Jesus, almighty God incarnate, needs the anointing of the Holy Spirit in order to fight the devil, then what does that say about us?
|
|
|
Posted by annc on Saturday, October 24 @ 11:11:08 CDT (272 reads)
(Read More... | 7091 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Preachers becoming Diplomatists and Strategists |
The fundamental
problem with evangelical diplomacy and strategy is
this: the living God has not called his servants to
put consequences before truth, but truth before
consequences. Certainly we are never (and I mean
never) to preach God's truth arrogantly and
pompously, far less coldly and clinically. But we
are always to preach it faithfully, always allowing
God's holy Word to lead us into God's holy ways. Ah,
you may by now be thinking, but this is a counsel of
suffering! Our churches will hang us out to dry,
cast us out into a harsh world. How will we then
live? How will we provide for our families and care
for Christ's vulnerable flock? The answer to that
not unimportant question was given by our Lord Jesus
himself: 'If anyone would come after me, he must
deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow
me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for me will save it' (Luke
9:23). Beware of becoming diplomatists and
strategists and not heralds. The God who calls us to
serve in the fellowship of his Son, is the God who
is able to set a table in the wilderness (even an
ecclesiastical wilderness) for his servants.
|
|
|
Posted by admin on Thursday, June 04 @ 08:24:35 CDT (442 reads)
(Read More... | 4586 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| The Ulster Awakening of 1859 |
One hundred and fifty years ago the Irish province of Ulster came under the powerful influences of the Spirit of God. The spiritual life of churches was revived and their witness to the gospel strengthened. The unconverted were deeply affected by the truth of the gospel. Great numbers flocked to the churches for spiritual relief from an unrelenting conviction of the guilt of sin.
The movement began in Co. Antrim in a particularly inauspicious manner. A small group of believers met for prayer. News of a spiritual awakening in America, begun the previous year 1858, had reached Ulster and stirred up a desire for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the moribund churches in Ireland. It was not long before prayer was answered. One by one, and then in unimagined multitudes
|
|
|
Posted by admin on Friday, May 29 @ 02:50:14 CDT (468 reads)
(Read More... | 11762 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| The Return of Christ |
On recent Sundays I’ve been preaching on the return of Christ. I grew up with some very mixed-up ideas about the Second Coming, but understanding the doctrine in our heads surely isn’t enough. As I’ve preached these sermons, I’ve found myself asking again and again, 'how much do I look forward to the return of Christ? How much do I want him to come again?'
The New Testament takes it for granted that believers will long for the return of Christ. The Christians in Thessalonica had only been believers a short time when Paul wrote his first letter to them. But already people throughout Greece were commenting on what had happened to them. 'They report . . . how you turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who saves us from the wrath to come . . . '. Godless people were talking about these Christians, their strange behaviour, their strange beliefs. And one of the things that struck them most forcibly was that these Christians were all waiting for God’s Son from heaven. I wonder whether our unbelieving friends would say that about us.
When he wrote to the Philippian believers Paul could say, 'our citizenship is in heaven and from there, we wait for a Saviour . . .' (Phil. 3:20). When he wrote to Timothy he could simply describe Christians as 'all those who have loved his appearing' (2 Tim. 4:8). In his letter to Titus, he pictures believers 'waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ' (Titus 2:13). As he came to the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, he used a one word Aramaic prayer: 'Maranatha!' - 'Our Lord, come!' The Corinthian church was in Greece, but Paul knew that all his readers would understand that Aramaic word. Why? Because it was a prayer they used constantly. New Testament believers prayed for the coming of Christ.
|
|
|
Posted by admin on Friday, May 29 @ 02:47:07 CDT (471 reads)
(Read More... | 13148 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Sadness is a Normal Part of Life |
Times of sadness are a normal part of the Christian life. To see the world
rejecting the Saviour and accepting other gospels that are no gospels is
grievous. The prophet Jeremiah lamented the state of the people of God and the
destruction of Jerusalem. Our Lord wept over Jerusalem sinners. He wept also at
the tomb of Lazarus as did the early church when Stephen was murdered. To bear
the burden of ‘the cares of the churches’ is at times to feel one is going to
crack under the strain. Sometime a congregation must encourage its pastor to
weep, and sometimes he must sympathize with their tears.
If Christians weep, how much more sadness must there be in the world because of
the weight of unforgiven sin, lack of purpose in life, and the muddles that
people without the Bible fall into? On January 15 2009 in the Daily Express,
Dr Theodore Dalrymple wrote this piece on the theme that 'no one is unhappy
these days; everyone is depressed'. It makes salutary reading. It is only by the
gospel of Jesus Christ that a sinner can fulfil the exhortation to rejoice in
the Lord always. Without that good news they are condemned to a life of
melancholy.
Geoff Thomas
|
|
|
Posted by admin on Friday, May 29 @ 02:19:32 CDT (492 reads)
(Read More... | 6980 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Why the Christian Life is Hard |
RESTING IN THE REDEEMERDo you think that the Christian life is hard? If so, what
makes it hard, and if not, why does it seem so hard for so many professing
Christians?
We can begin to consider this matter in terms of the context of the question and
in terms of our defining what we mean by the word hard. Regarding
context, the Bible alerts us to the fact that it is through many tribulations
that we must enter the kingdom of God. The sufferings of the apostles in the
Book of Acts illustrate some of the sufferings of the faithful. Yet, do we
always suffer? Is our calling in Christ always to be under the yoke of stress,
straining, persecution, affliction, and sacrifice? And are these things the only
elements that compose the Christian life? The true context in which we face the
challenges and difficulties inherent in our pilgrimage of faith is one composed
of trials and triumphs, sorrows and joys, pains and holy pleasures. Therefore,
when we understand that the Christian life contains such mixed elements, we
cannot and should not think or characterize the life of faith as being hard in
the sense of it being unalloyed pain and suffering.
While the Bible is clear that the tribulations of the saints can be many,
varied, and at times exquisitely painful and profoundly perplexing, the Word of
God is emphatic in stating that all of our pains serve useful and sanctifying
purposes in our lives. The thorns we cry to our God to remove from our flesh
serve as prods to direct us to the abundantly sufficient grace of our Lord. The
afflictions we endure come upon us by no accident or negligence on God's part,
but are ordained by him for the production in us of an eternal weight of glory.
It is when we appropriate the divine grace that we begin to rejoice and boast in
our afflictions and weaknesses, seeing the connection between them and God's
glory and our good. It is when we feed upon the sure hope of that glory in view
of which all of our sufferings should be considered as momentary, light, and, in
fact, beneficial producers of glorious gain, that we begin to count ourselves
blessed when we suffer for Christ's sake.
|
|
|
Posted by admin on Friday, May 29 @ 02:10:49 CDT (621 reads)
(Read More... | 5740 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| A VIEW OF GOD'S GLORY |
|
A VIEW OF GOD'S GLORY
C. H. Spurgeon
"I beseech thee, show me thy glory." Among the lofty peaks and summits of man's prayers that rise like mountains to the skies, this is the culminating point; this is the highest elevation that faith ever gained: it is the loftiest place to which the great ambition of faith could climb; it is the topmost pillar of all the towering structures that confidence ever piled. I am astonished that Moses himself should have been bold enough to supplicate so wondrous a favor. Surely after he had uttered the desire, his bones must have trembled, his blood curdled in his veins, and his hair must have stood on end. Did he not wonder at himself? Did he not tremble at his own hardihood? We believe that such would have been the case had not the faith which prompted the prayer sustained him in the review of it.
|
|
|
Posted by admin on Thursday, May 28 @ 22:05:57 CDT (440 reads)
(Read More... | 29301 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
| |
| Top Ten Links | |
| Big Story of Today | |
|
There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet. | |
| Old Articles | |
|
There isn't content right now for this block. | |
| Information | |
|
|
