Saturday, November 26, 2011

Puritan Prayers

Grant me never to lose sight of The exceeding sinfulness of sin, The exceeding righteousness of salvation, The exceeding glory of Christ, The exceeding beauty of holiness, The exceeding wonder of grace.
~The Valley Of Vision~Prayers of the Puritans

ALL OUR THOUGHTS

All our thoughts concerning Christ and his glory should be accompanied with admiration, adoration, and thanksgiving. For this is such an object of our thoughts and affections as, in this life, we can never fully comprehend,—an ocean whose depths we cannot look into. If we are spiritually renewed, all the faculties of our souls are enabled by grace to exert their respective powers towards this glorious object.

~John Owen

NORMAL OR STRANGE

"Worldliness is what any particular culture does to make sin look normal and righteousness look strange." ~ David Wells

Friday, November 25, 2011

UTTERLY PASSIVE

Arminians...

A [g]ospel which teaches that the difference between the man in heaven and the man in hell is something that the man in heaven did on his own steam and apart from the grace of God is a blasphemous parody of the True Gospel. The man in hell simply did not use his Almighty Will properly and the man in heaven did.... this is a man-centered works-based [g]ospel which is not good news at all.

Man does not find it within himself to properly coordinate his decisions and thus choose to save himself. A man is only saved if the LORD gives him the gift of faith. Arminians teach that faith is what man does independent from God and that God is waiting on man to straighten up and fly right. Scripture teaches that man is dead, in need of new life, and thus unable to help himself. Scripture also teaches that faith is a gift from God and not something that man must locate within his thoroughly wretched self. One [g]ospel is all about what man does and that system hates the fact that faith is given to man as a gift. The True Gospel is about what God gives to man as a gift, not what man chooses to do as an independent agent. One is works-righteousness and one is salvation by grace alone. The reason that faith is not a work is because it's not something that man does, but rather something that man receives as a gift. The rebel sinner who is guilty of high treason and who lives on death row has one option: receive mercy. Man is utterly passive in salvation, lest any man should boast.

In Christ,
Dennis Keesee

Thursday, November 24, 2011

ALL THINGS WHATEVER ARISE

"All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned." - Martin Luther

PREPARING

While Jesus is in heaven, preparing a place for His people, the Spirit is on earth, preparing His people for that place- Winslow

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

SHOULD BE ABANDONED

"The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36)." - D. A. Carson

Monday, November 21, 2011

CORNER-STONE, STONE OF STUMBLING.

Grace is only given to the sheep; The death angel was a blessing to jews, to be the final basis for their release. The death angel was a curse for the Egyptians, to be the demise of their evil. The same event, two different effects. Grace to one, judgment to the other. I think one Puritan made the same observation about the Red Sea, a means of life for the Jews, a means of death for the Pharaoh....one miracle, a purpose of grace, a purpose of judgment, God glorified in both.
 Noah's boat saved his family, and condemned the World. (Hebrews 11);
Jesus is the corner-stone, and a stone of stumbling.
Jericho's wall fell, a miracle for the Jews, a curse for the residents. 

Sunday, November 20, 2011

NO SENSE TO ELECT

Arminianism cannot make sense out of God's election. If God elects individuals based on His knowledge of those creatures choosing Him, there is no sense for God to elect anyone; since those creatures will choose Him anyway.

ULTIMATE TRAGEDY

"The ultimate tragedy of man's self-understanding is that he believes himself to be free, has all the feelings of a free agent, but does not realize that he is a slave to sin and serves the will of Satan." ~Sinclair Ferguson

WHATSOEVER

God determines whatsoever comes to pass:

Proverbs 16:1, 4, 7, 9, 33; 20:24; 21:1, Jeremiah 10:23, Lamentations 3:37, 38, Amos 3:6, Acts 17:26-27, Daniel 2:21; 4:35, Psalm 139:16, Ephesians 1:11, Romans 11:36 John 3:27, Job 12:9-10; 14:5

UNITED TO CHRIST

"We can no more unite ourselves to Christ, than a branch can incorporate itself into another stock; it is of Him, of God, His proper and alone work." John Flavel

NO BOX OF CANDY

"Grace is not like a box of candy that you can send back if you don't want it. Grace is divine favor, an attitude of God's own heart. We cannot stop him from loving us, if he chooses to do so. Nor can we stop him from giving us blessings of salvation: regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification. His purpose in us will certainly be fulfilled, Phil. 1:6, Eph. 1:11." ~John Frame

WHO CHANGED YOUR HEART

Diagnostic Q: Who changed your mind? Who changed your heart? Who changed your nature? Who changed your will? #1. These are not about "general influence", but real change. Do you credit God and His Grace or your self?

Friday, November 18, 2011

Open Theism Again

If the Arminian is consistent, it is also "impossible for the elect to be lost" because God supposedly foresees down the corridors of time; and so why does the Arminian witness, I mean if I don't witness, God must have foresaw another dude witnessing to him; Arminians should admit how they hold hands with Open-theism.

ALL OF THE SPIRIT

As Christians grow in holy living, they sense their own inherent moral weakness and rejoice that whatever virtue they possess flourishes as the fruit of the Spirit.
D.A. Carson

Thursday, November 17, 2011

POWERLESSNESS

Believing the Gospel doesn't make you powerful. Believing the Gospel expresses your powerlessness.-- Jeff Holder.

DUSKY COLORS

God often lays the sum of His amazing providences in very dismal afflictions; as the limner first puts on the dusky colors, on which he intends to draw the portraiture of some illustrious beauty.--Stephen Charnock

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

SONGS ARMINIANS SHOULD SING

Your will put Jesus on the cross, and yet you trust it as the principle cause of your regeneration and salvation? How about writing a hymn with those lyrics and singing a solo before your congregation...."My will put Jesus on the cross, but my will can cause my regeneration." (everybody clap and shout Hallelujah now.); What a disgrace.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

JOHN NEWTON GREAT MATERIAL

1. I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face

2. Twas He who taught me thus to pray
And He I trust has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair

3. I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest

4. Instead of this He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart
And let the angry powers of Hell
Assault my soul in every part

5. Yea more with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Cast out my feelings, laid me low

6. Lord why is this, I trembling cried
Wilt Thou pursue thy worm to death?
“Tis in this way” The Lord replied
“I answer prayer for grace and faith”

7. “These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in me,
That thou mayest seek thy all in me.”

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Sarcastic Book

New book, "How to ensure that the Holy Spirit regenerates your child without fail."  Learn how you the sinner can be competent enough to guarantee your child's salvation.  If you would like to send a gift copy to the Arminian god so he can read it and become more successful in saving the humans he created, let us know.

TAUNT GOD

An Arminian man taunts me saying with ridicule...that my ministry to my 3 year old may all be in vain if God has not elected him; Which I think is odd. After all, this Arminian is completely fine with God's "ministry" to billions of sinners ending up all in vain. Yet it is somehow a tragedy if a sinner's ministry to another sinner be in vain. Why doesn't this Arminian mock God for trying to save billions and failing to accomplish what He intended. This Arminian should tell his god, "too bad you spent 74 years trying to save that sinner and he ended up rejecting you anyhow, didn't you know your efforts were going to be in vain." The Arminian thinks somehow he should retire the Holy Spirit, so his own sinful soul can take His place and secure a child's salvation by his own parenting.

Of course it matters

What does it profit if one says.
" God is." = (theism). 
"Jesus is God." = (Incarnation.);

yet say, "Jesus failed; thus, God failed." = (Impotence = atheism).
and say, "Our view of the atonement is irrelevant" = (Our view that God failed to save = Impotence = our atheism is also irrelevant"); 

Of course one's view of the atonement is relevant, of course one's atheism via idolatry is relevant.

EXCITEMTENT NOT DETACHMENT

My 3 year old boy is excited about his toy and is beaming to have me share that excitement. A good example of how we are to proclaim the Glory and Grace of God. No, it is not solely an emotional context, but witnessing the mount of transfiguration was not a detached informational documentary for Peter; The same could be said of Peter's swim to the shore. John 21:7.

Friday, November 11, 2011

TRUST ME

God says "trust me." The Arminian says, "I trust myself"

Does Providence Exist

If I am suddenly in the mood for coffee, and I decide to check out a coffee shop that I've never visited instead of settling for a home brew, and upon arriving I get into a discussion about the gospel, and God grants that person repentance and faith in Christ; Should the person say, "God better be glad you had a interest in coffee tonight, because it was purely your hunch to come, and purely God's fortunate turn of events, so there is no point in crediting God for the crossing of our paths. God gave a general call to evangelize, but all the specifics should not be counted as God's providence."
Arminians either do not have a doctrine of Providence, or else it is extremely bizarre, and can ultimately be distilled as "Man's Providence for God."
 
 

DIRECTLY INVOLVED

How directly, intimately, and personally involved was God in providing, securing, arranging, and determining your very first exposure to Scripture, and every solitary exposure thereafter?  Now, How directly, intimately, and personally involved was God in providing, securing, arranging, and determining the Amazon tribesman of 35 A.D. get exposure to Scripture?  Why the disparity on God's part? 

Genesis 6 Selective

Genesis 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.; Why didn't all of Noah's neighbors find grace in the eyes of the Lord? Why does Noah need grace in the eyes of the Lord, can't Noah just up and decide to build a sturdy boat by his own choice?
 (Really???) God did not select Noah to build the Ark; God had made offers to everyone, and finally (luckily) found someone who would make a choice in line with God's hopes. Hopefully, one day God can find someone who will agree to play the role of virgin mother, and if it is not too much to ask, someone in the line of David. Still looking down the corridors of time hunting for her; rumor has it that some gal name Mary may say yes. fingers crossed.
 

EMBARRASSED?

Did the Father, Son, and Spirit try with all the Divine sovereign power, wisdom, grace, and effort--- to save the reprobate and fail? Why did the Triune God try to save the reprobate if He knew He would fail in His attempt to save them? When did it dawn on God that His Sovereign power, wisdom, grace and effort would fail? After He tried, during his attempt, or before his attempt? Is the triune God embarrassed that He tried to save and failed?

FOOLISH PRIDE

Is this your position?

"Before time began, God selected no one for heaven and no one for hell. Thus God creating preceded His purpose to elect and reprobate. It matters if we resist God's purpose for us, because our resisting or non-resisting is the determining factor if we go to heaven or hell. It matters what WE DO on earth. If we want to go to escape hell all our repentance and faith, etc. will get us to heaven. If we want to escape heaven all our unrighteousness will prevent God and God's grace from saving us from His eternal wrath. Thus since we are told to be righteous, we can be righteous all we want and that would be the logical conclusion to this philosophy. If God does not want to save anyone, but merely make salvation a possibility, and He has, there is no sense in missions or prayers, etc, because God will not save anyone no matter what; Just make it possible, which He has, and there is nothing more for Him to do, the rest is up to man to make the ultimate difference, a difference that God will not make."

(I hope not.)

BY DEFINITION

Arminians have no right to use the word "atonement" because their usage is one of ZERO effect. There is no such thing as "no applied atonement" that is an oxymoron and impossible by definition, it would be like saying an immaterial incarnation, where Jesus' birth made a physical incarnation possible, but now it is just a general incarnation and will become physical if Jesus decides to apply it to his birth.

 Exo 29:36  and every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement. Also you shall purify the altar, when you make atonement for it, and shall anoint it to consecrate it.   

[NOT IN THE BIBLE--> 37. Let the altar know atonement was made available and then discern if the altar accepts my offer.  Tell the altar that the atonement will be applied to its impurity only if it accepts what I made available.  For I have made its atonement a possibility.]

Thursday, November 10, 2011

LUCKILY FOR GOD???

(Really???) Luckily for God Noah agreed, Abram agreed, Isaac agreed, Jacob agreed, Moses agreed, Joshua, Samuel, David, the 13 prophets, the virgin Mary, John the Baptist, the 13 apostles--- luckily for God these all agreed to cooperate. What an insane message. There is no good news. There is only sinful vanity.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

SEE THE DEAD RISE

When we shall see the dead rise from the grave by their own power, then may we expect to see ungodly sinners of their own free will turning to Christ. It is not the word preached, nor the word read in itself; all quickening power proceeds from the Holy Ghost. ~Spurgeon

Dispositions

- “Christians should be grave and serious, though cheerful and pleasant. They should feel that they have great interests at stake, and that the world has too. They are redeemed—not to make sport; purchased with precious blood—for other purposes than to make men laugh. They are soon to be in heaven—and a man who has any impressive sense of that will habitually feel he has much else to do than to make men laugh. The true course of life is midway between moroseness and levity; sourness and lightness; harshness and jesting. Be benevolent, kind, cheerful, bland, courteous—but serious. Be solemn, thoughtful, deeply impressed with the presence of God and with eternal things—but pleasant affable and benignant. Think not a smile sinful; but think not levity and jesting harmless. “ ~ Albert Barnes

TABLE INTO A SNARE

"Whatever poison Satan produces, God turns it into medicine for his elect." John Calvin commenting on Gen 50:20"...yet... [God] turns the food of reprobates into poison, their light into darkness, their table into a snare, and, in short, their life into death. If human minds cannot reach these depths, let them rather suppliantly adore the mysteries they do not comprehend, than, as vessels of clay, proudly exalt themselves against their Maker." via. Manuel K.

THE SOLE CAUSE

Calvinists insist that the sole cause of regeneration or being born again is the will of God. God first sovereignly and efficaciously regenerates, and only in consequence of that do we act. Therefore, the individual is passive in regeneration, neither preparing himself nor making himself receptive to what God will do. Regeneration is a change wrought in us by God, not an autonomous act performed by us for ourselves. Man’s status in regard to regeneration is that of a recipient, not a contributor. Man is spiritually, in relation to regeneration, what Lazarus was physically, in relation to resurrection: dead, passive, unable to do anything at all, wholly subject to the will of Him who gives life and breath to whomever He desires.
- Sam Storms

Saturday, November 5, 2011

HEART OF FLESH

He doesn't say, "I will remove their will of stone from their flesh and give them a will of flesh," but rather, Ezekiel 19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh;

The will in a heart of stone is bound by the nature of stone, the will in a heart of flesh is bound by the nature of flesh

Amos 8:11

(Amos 8:11) Behold, the days come, says the Lord Jehovah; that I will send a famine in the land; not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water; but of hearing the Words of Jehovah.

DQ3- Is God trying to save everyone by this act?

Friday, November 4, 2011

VIOLATION AND CAUSATION

The erroneous doctrine of "prevenient grace" as it is, would ALSO violate the supposed, "free-will" of man by turning it from "unable to trust" to "enabled to the possibility to trust" without the consent of the individual's will. So they teach an "irresistable-effectual prevenient grace" which is forced on a man's will who otherwise had no desire for this prevenient grace to be given him; So they laud, "violation and causation" upon the sinner's will when it comes to the "prevenient grace" but decry, "violation and causation" when it comes to saving grace; [yes, I know, God owns His creation, and thus in either case it is never a violation when He has Sovereign rights over it.]

ELECTION IN THE COMMON LANGUAGES

“At the very announcement of the text some will be ready to say, “Why preach upon so profound a doctrine as election?” I answer, because it is in God’s word, and whatever is in the Word of God is to be preached. “But some truths ought to be kept back from the people,” you will say, “lest they should make an ill use thereof.” That is Popish doctrine, it was upon that very theory that the priests kept back the Bible from the people, they did not give it to them lest they should misuse it.

“But are not some doctrines dangerous?” Not if they are true and rightly handled. Truth is never dangerous, it is error and reticence that are fraught with peril. “But do not men abuse the doctrine of grace?” I grant you that they do; but if we destroyed everything that men misuse, we should have nothing left. Are there to be no ropes because some fools will hang themselves? And, must cutlery be discarded and denounced, because there are some who will use dangerous weapons for the destruction of their adversaries? Decidedly not.

Besides all this, remember that men do read the Scriptures and think about these doctrines, and therefore often make mistakes about them; who then shall set them right if we, who preach the Word, hold our tongues about the matter?”

– C. H. Spurgeon, from sermon entitled, Election: Its Defenses and Evidences

FIRST THINGS FIRST

 “It [Election] probably ought to be the first thing you teach a young believer. Now that you’ve come to Christ, this is what I want you to know, you were saved by the sovereign grace of God who stepped into your life in the midst of your death and blindness and gave you life and sight and picked you up and brought you into His Kingdom. Sheer grace has done this for you. That, I think, is the first thing you should say to a new convert. This is, if in fact, you are faithful to the confession you have made, if in fact your love for Christ and desire to honor, to worship and to obey Him continues to grow, this will be an ongoing evidence that God has wrought a miracle in your life. And because of that, you need to know, this is really important, that you should live a life of gratitude for a work has been done in you which you did not deserve and did not earn.”
-- John MacArthur, Answering the Key Questions About the Doctrine of Election (Interview):
(source: monergism.com)

NOBODY HAS A CHANCE

Often, when discussing the issue of election, the question is raised: "Doesn't everybody have a chance?".  The answer is NOBODY has a chance apart from divine election. 
-Greg Crouse

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Enemies

"The friends of free-will are the enemies of free-grace." - John Trapp

Beliefs, or Christ, or Both.

People often say to the affect, "Salvation is not from our beliefs, but from Christ"; While this is true, the writer must inherently identify "which Christ" he is writing of, and is making his assertion based on a particular "belief in-or-about Christ"; The truth is, a Mormon claims to "look to Christ" and yet has erected a false Christ, and the Mormon's belief evidence such; There is no profit to make a vague Christ, which is obscured by the generalities you proclaim; Thus to truly preach Christ is to preach specifics, and those specifics entail a set of beliefs. Ironically, the writer is saying "focus on Christ, not beliefs." and yet that statement in itself is a belief.

NONE SEEK HIM, NO NOT ONE

"If there is to be a rescue operation for us children of Adam, aimed at bringing us to anything like God meant us to be, it has to overcome not only our sin and depravity, but the fact that sin makes us utterly uninterested in the solution. In fact, we would be repelled by it. C.S. Lewis spoke for us all: 'Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man's search for God. To me . . . they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat." 
Dan Phillips, The World Tilting Gospel.... via Scott F

IT ALREADY IS

Ligon Duncan on 2 Tim. 3:16,17 -- "Put in popular terms, the apostle Paul is saying that the Bible is inherently practical. It is not your pastor's job to make it practical. It already is. It's the most practical book in the world. And the only reason we think it's impractical to hear the Word of God expounded is that we're interested in other questions and other things. But I want to tell you this: it is the questions addressed and the things spoken of in the Word of God that are truly practical. And if we are interested in other questions and other things, we're interested in the wrong things, because there is nothing impractical in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation." (via. Scott F.)