Responding Rightly to Overwhelming Calamity
Sometimes it seem like things just cannot get any worse.
Things can just seem to go from bad to worse. Many of us have had days like that. While we may not go through things quite as bad and heavy-duty as David did, we all still need to respond as he did. What we find in verse 6 is something we must remember and apply:... Continue Reading
It’s All About Jesus
Christ is the heart of the gospel prefigured, procured, and proclaimed.
All of the blessings of the new covenant are bound up in Christ and represented by baptism, and are received by grace through faith. As Christ preached in the days of Noah, so He preaches in our day to come to Him and be saved. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just... Continue Reading
Coping with Unanswered Prayer through the Local Church
God wants us to respond to unanswered prayer by pushing further into him, by drawing nearer.
When our prayers go unanswered, it ought to be a wake-up call to dive back into the means of grace God has mercifully provided for us. One of those means of grace is the local church. Fellowship with like-minded Christians in the gathering of the local church is crucial to a Christian’s spiritual life. ... Continue Reading
A Lesson on Running from Failure
Scripture tells us of the failures of the saints to encourage us—because we will surely fail too.
In Peter’s unique experience we find a model for facing our deepest failures. His example teaches us that we ought not to run from or ignore our collapses, since they are actually opportunities to repent of self-sufficiency and to depend on God’s grace—to show that we are weak but that He is strong. From... Continue Reading
Lost Leaders and the Death of Nations
As the West drowns in useless and hopeless woke leadership, our future is looking really bleak.
This is not just a case of bad politics and bad ideas. As I said in another recent piece: The more I think about it, the more diabolical things appear to be. We do not just have bad philosophies and bad ideologies and bad social policies and bad political agendas. We have satanic philosophies and... Continue Reading
Follow Without Seeing, Die Without Receiving
What is it like to live for the glory of an unseen God?
As Christians, we live for a reward we cannot yet have and do not yet hold. We deny ourselves what would seem desirable and pleasurable in this life in favor of promised rewards that are much greater and much better—but that are withheld until the life to come. We set out by faith, not knowing... Continue Reading
He is Worthy
The Pearl of Great Price
When things are dark and bleak and hard will you turn your back on Him? Impossible. You know that He deserves more. Its still true that if the whole realm of nature were yours that would be an offering far too small. Christian reader, He deserves you. He has a been a Friend to you, and He... Continue Reading
To Whom Will You Liken Me? The Biblical Prohibition of Images (Part 2)
It is idolatry to make representations of Christ in the image of a creature.
Nothing is offered for those who seek Christ by images. Thomas Vincent summarizes the argument in this way: “Images or pictures of God are an abomination and utterly unlawful because they debase God and may be a cause of idolatrous worship” (Vincent, p. 147). Have you put away images of any or of all of... Continue Reading
Book Review: Identity and the Worship of Self
How are we to think about modern notions of identity?
The situation has gotten more serious in that many Christians have bought into the idea that Pride is an identity—that what are rightly behaviors are considered to be identities. This is an assumption that may flow naturally from a Pelagian understanding of humanity, but not an orthodox, biblical one. Turning to the deep riches of... Continue Reading
Penal Substitution and Other Atonement Theologies
Over the centuries, five main atonement theologies have been given.
Of all the atonement views, only penal substitution best captures the God-centered nature of the cross. The alternatives either minimize or deny 1) that God’s holy justice is essential to him, 2) why our sin is first against God (Ps. 51:4), and 3) why Christ as our penal substitute is central to the cross. Before we can speak of... Continue Reading
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