It’s Okay to Feel Sorrow During Christmas
The incarnation isn’t a celebration for happy people; it’s hope for those who wish things were different.
Yet, we often believe that we are the only one who struggles. We conjure up images of picturesque families celebrating their perfect lives. The problem is that such families simply don’t exist. There are no perfect people celebrating their perfect lives this Christmas. Everyone wishes things were different. And, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this is actually the point of Christmas.
Perseverance of the Saints: The Persevering God
When struggling with sin, believers fear that they are falling away, that they will “lose their salvation”, that they will not “persevere”.
If you are in Christ, God has made a covenant with you by sacrifice,[7] the sacrifice of His beloved son, Jesus Christ. In Christ God has supremely demonstrated His Hesed and Hemet. This Hesed and Hemet are simply expressions of who He is, His very nature or being. So, when you sin dear believer, run to Christ! Confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.[8] You can take this to the bank, Hesed is His very nature. Therefore, you will persevere because God will persevere in you.
The Incarnation: Immense, Yet Simple
Paganism worships this immense universe as divine. But the Bible presents the overwhelming, sovereign being of God, as above and as maker of the heavens.
The Gospel is a message of disarming simplicity. Unlike paganism, which is forever impersonal, the true God of such cosmic immensity is also the personal God of the divine Trinity who reaches down to reveal himself in the form of a man, born as a baby in a stable in Bethlehem. Standing in the... Continue Reading
10 Things You Should Know about Christmas
Jesus became weak, humbled himself on a cross, and died for our sin (Phil. 2:5–8). That—not gaudy commercialism—is what Christmas is all about.
Herod tried to kill Jesus (Matt. 2:16). There was no place for Jesus in the inn (Luke 2:7). Even though the world was made through Jesus, the world didn’t recognize him (John 1:11). Many didn’t welcome the birth of the Christ child. The reason for this was primarily that Jesus threatened people’s self-interest. Sinful people... Continue Reading
Why Didn’t God Send Jesus Right After Adam and Eve Sinned?
Why did God wait all that time between Adam and Eve and the cross?
It’s an amazing and wonderful thing to realize that God devised His plan, created us, and is perfectly executing the plan, so that we could enjoy Him. He was infinitely satisfied within Himself, the Godhead, before creation. He didn’t create for Himself; rather, at His pleasure He created for us. Just to have lived is... Continue Reading
The Value of Scripture
The value of Scripture in the life of the believer lies in its source and its function.
When Paul wrote that Scripture is God-breathed, the idea was not one of inspiration but of expiration; that is, the Bible was breathed out by God. The whole point here is that the Bible comes from God. It is His Word and carries with it His authority. Paul wanted Timothy to understand the source of... Continue Reading
Forgiveness’s Dirty Little Secret
The concept of cleansing captures the experience of forgiveness in purification from the defilement of sin and stain of guilt.
It is in this sense that when we confess our sin, we do not receive forgiveness so much as we realize it. Jesus paid it all; all to Him we owe. From that realization, the wonder of grace dawns anew in our hearts. We are humbled before such amazing love. And, purposing to new obedience, we beseech our God... Continue Reading
Old and New Testament Sacraments
Why has the change to New Testament sacraments resulted in a seemingly opposite scope for circumcision giving way to baptism, and Passover giving way to the Lord’s Supper?
There might be some fruitful ground here for answering both the Baptists and the Federal Vision folks, who both have the same error in treating the NT sacraments as working the same way. Indeed, as a friend of mine once said, the problem of the FV’ers in their sacramental theology is not that they have over-reacted to Baptistic theology in every respect, but that they have not thrown off the problems of Baptistic thinking enough. It must be born in mind that most FV’ers were Baptists before they became FV.
Sinful Anger: Its Cause and Cure
Jonathan Edwards set out four things that believers are to remember in order to watch against sinful anger
Very often those that are most ready to be angry with others, and to carry their resentments highest for their faults, are equally or still more guilty of the same faults. And so those that are most apt to be angry with others for speaking evil of them, are often most frequent in speaking evil of others, and even in their anger to vilify and abuse them.
A Day in God’s House in the 1850s
The following is a lively description of a typical Lord’s Day in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Indiana in the 1850s.
The religious exercises in the “meeting- house” were named from their principal part, “preaching”. That is the meaning of the noun which I am not able to find in the dictionary; but it was so used among us in my boyhood. My mother might have said to us, “It is time to get ready to go to “preaching”; and one of the boys might have asked her, “What shirt am I to wear to “preaching” today?” or after our return one might have said, “There were a good many at preaching.” Whether all the people there used the word so, or not, I cannot tell; but such was the meaning the word conveyed to my mind. My recollection is confirmed by finding the word so employed in the earlier part of my diary. “Preaching” included all the public services on an ordinary Sabbath.