Zeal and Prudence

 There is often too much self in our zeal, and too much of the fear of man in our prudence.

John Newton

Assurance from the Trinity

 Assurance of salvation is founded on:

1. The blood & righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel;

2. The inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit unto which promises are made;

3. The testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God.

— 2LCF 18.2

In other words, we can be sure of our salvation because of Christ’s work 𝘧𝘰𝘳 us, the Spirit’s work 𝘪𝘯 us, and the Spirit’s testimony 𝘵𝘰 us of the Father’s love.

Mike Riccardi

Romans 5:19

 “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be constituted righteous.”

— Romans 5:19

Adam’s disobedience to God's law in the Garden provides an actual, lived-out record of human disobedience which was counted to be ours through our union with him. His law-breaking is the legal basis on which God justly constitutes all men guilty.

In the same way, Christ’s life of obedience to God's law provides the actual, lived-out record of righteousness which is counted to be ours through our union with Him. His law-keeping is the legal basis on which God justly constitutes guilty sinners righteous.

Christ died for our sins, and He lived for our righteousness. Leave out one or the other, and you preach a half-gospel.

Daily Reading

 

Only Christ can mix and administer

 Repentance is a soul-medicine that only Christ can mix and administer. If sorrow for sin be of our own or another's brewing, or if it is trusted in in place of His blood and merits, it is a toxic counterfeit, and not true repentance.

"Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance.." (Acts 5:13)

"And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn." (Zech. 12:10)

by "Jonathan Edward" not the original, but someone born 19 years ago or so.

For the People of God

 The bronze serpent was not intended for the Canaanites or the Egyptians, who lived and died in unbelief. Rather, it was exclusively for God's people, who looked and lived. So it is with the death of Christ. He died for His people, for all who would put their trust in Him. (Dr. Steven Lawson's "Foundations of Grace" page 93).

MULTIPLE

 "As God at first gives faith through the Word, so He also exercises, increases, confirms and perfects it through the Word." - Martin Luther

"Faith is sustained by looking at Christ, crucified and risen, not by turning from Christ to analyze your faith… Paradoxically, if we would experience the joy of faith, we must not focus much on it. We must focus on the greatness of our Savior." - John Piper Faith is not built by preaching introspectively (constantly challenging people to question whether they have faith); faith is not built by preaching moralistically (which has exactly the opposite effect of focusing attention on the self rather than on...... Christ, in whom our faith is placed); Faith is built by careful, thorough exposition of the person, character, and work of Christ.- T. David Gordon; I cannot go anywhere without Christ; I cannot perform the least duty without him here to help me; without Christ in anything, I produce nothing but stenching smoke; I cannot take my next breath without Christ by my side or his permitting me to, and neither would I want to go anywhere or do anything without him. The loveliness of Christ shines through into the darkest of dungeons or prisons, and turns them into palaces. I would be mad to wish a second to be without Christ. (Covenanted Reformation) "Nevertheless, let me tell you, that trust, confidence, reliance, and dependence, for salvation, are all acts and very solemn ones too, of divine worship: and upon whatsoever you depend, whether in whole or in part, for your acceptance with God,and for your justification in His sight, whatsoever, you rely upon, and trust in, for the attainment of grace or glory; if it be any thing short of God in Christ, you are an idolater to all intents and purposes." - Augustus Toplady

Multiple Puritans on Prayer

 “When you begin to pray always get into this position, leaning on His bosom. Don’t pray to some one far off. Don’t pray even to some one in the same room.” - Andrew Bonar

“As in the case of prayer, when God prepares the heart to pray, He prepares His ear to hear (Ps. 10:17). So in the case of spiritual hunger, when God prepares the heart to hunger, He will prepare His hand to fill." ~Thomas Watson

"He has ordained beforehand that the day when He prepares our hearts to pray shall be the day when His ear shall hear the desire of the humble, and shall become the season of our deliverance.” ~Isaac Watts

"God graciously determines that warm, affectionate prayers are forerunners of a decreed mercy! These ardent affections are kindled by divine grace when the mercies promised are about to fall on us. Prayer is the chain that draws souls up to God and the mercies of God to us!” ~Samuel Lee

"We do not pray out of hope to alter God's eternal purposes; but we pray to obtain that which God has ordained to be received by our prayers. We ask, that we may be fit to receive what God has from all eternity determined to give by prayer, and not otherwise." ~Ezekiel Hopkins

BURN BY PRAYER

 The truths that I know best I have learned on my knees. I never know a thing well, till it is burned into my heart by prayer.

John Bunyan

I can't help myself

 I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me. -CS Lewis

CONTENTMENT FROM FULLNESS IN CHRIST

 That is, contentment is not mainly negative, but there is a strong positive focus. It is not achieved by a mere denial of desires, which leaves one empty. Rather, it entails a deliberate focus on the immeasurable treasures that we already possess in Christ. It is not produced by an exercise of willpower, but it is a natural outcome of knowledge.

COMMUNE

"We do well to remember that no amount of activity in the King's service will make up for the neglect of the King Himself." -Duncan Campbell. 

 We miss a thousand blessings because we’re too busy to commune with God. We are here, there, and everywhere, except where we ought to be. -Charles Spurgeon

GROANS ARE THE DEEP BASS

I tell you the groans of the damned in hell are the deep bass of the universal anthem of praise that shall ascend to the throne of my God for ever and ever. -Charles Spurgeon

Not a decision

 

Quite Hopeless

 

Beyond His Will

What the Gospel is not

The gospel isn’t advice, instructions, threats, or warnings. It isn’t our response to the gospel: not our repentance, faith, or obedience. It’s not our story or our testimony. It is the good news of victory of all God has accomplished for us through Christ by the Spirit. -- Burk Parsons

God knew the worst about you.

God knew the worst about you when he accepted you for Jesus' sake; and the verdict which he passed then was, and is, final. -- J.I. Packer

NATURAL DISTANCE

A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for,and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.” ~Jonathan Edwards~

 

MAKE THEM KNOW THAT HE LOVES THEM.

 God hath abundantly revealed to us, in His word, that 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘥 in bringing men from sin to holiness of life, is, first to make them know that He loveth them, and that their sins are blotted out.

—Puritan Stephen Marshall (Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Pg. 19)

Expects nothing from this World.

 

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

 [Some not-so-well-known verses]

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,

Till released from flesh and sin,

Yet from what I do inherit,

Here Thy praises I'll begin;

Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Here by Thy great help I've come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood;

How His kindness yet pursues me

Mortal tongue can never tell,

Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me

I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,

I shall see Thy lovely face;

Clothed then in blood washed linen

How I'll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,

Take my ransomed soul away;

Send thine angels now to carry

Me to realms of endless day.

Robert Robinson (1735-90), 1758, as it appeared in his A Collection of Hymns Used by the

Church of Christ in Angel Alley, Bishopgate, 1759

CAST DOWN

 Remember, you that are cast down, under the sense of sin, that Jesus, your friend, in the court above, "is able to save to the uttermost.”

—Puritan John Flavel, Works 1.178

My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 1 John 2:1

EFFICACY IN THE BLOOD

 John Flavel – ‘...there is more efficacy in the blood of Christ (to forgive sins, than there is reason in the heinousness of sin to condemn the sinner). There is power enough in that blood, not only to pardon (your) sins, but the sins of the whole world, were it actually applied. There is not only sufficiency, but also a redundancy of merit in that precious blood.’ - (Works, vol.1, p.375)

Christ is All the Armour

 

Great Awakening

 GREAT AWAKENING.  

Jonathan Edwards, who was one of America's greatest theologians, was a New England pastor of the 1700s. Edwards was brilliant. At age 6 he studied Latin. He entered Yale when not quite 13 and graduated when barely 15. He was ordained at 19, taught at Yale by 20 and later became president of Princeton. Harvard granted him both a bachelor's and a master's degree on the same day.

But he is best known for Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God - the most famous sermon in American history. He preached it on Sunday, July 8th, 1741 while ministering in tiny Enfield, Connecticut. A group of women had spent the previous night praying for revival. When Edwards rose to speak, he quietly announced his text was Deuteronomy 32:35 "... their foot shall slide in due time." This "hellfire and brimstone" approach was somewhat a departure for Edwards. Of his thousand written sermons, less than a dozen are of this type. Edwards neither gestured nor raised his voice. He spoke softly and simply, warning the unconverted that they were dangling over hell like a spider over the fire.

"O sinner! Consider the fearful danger. The unconverted are now walking over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there innumberable places in this covering so weak that it will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen."

Edwards' voice was suddenly lost amid cries and commotion from the crowd. He paused, appealing for calm. Then he concluded: "Let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom."

Strong men held to pews and posts, feeling they were sliding into hell. Others shook uncontrollably and rolled on the floor. Throughought the night cries of men and women were heard throughout the village, begging God to save them. Five hundred were converted that evening, sparking a revival that swept thousands into the kingdom. The Great Awakening had come.

THE DUTIES GOD REQUIRES

the duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ. We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God’s tasks. This is a law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover.

--John Owen

"We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own." - John Owen

IF GOD DID NOT WANT TO ANSWER YOU

 "If God did not want to answer you, He would not have you pray." ~Martin Luther

THE MISERABLE

 "God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the afflicted, the oppressed, the desperate, and those who have been brought to nothing. ~Martin Luther

I did not induce it

 "The spiritual life which I have is not my own. I did not induce it, and I cannot maintain it. It is only and solely the work of Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. My whole life is His alone."

John Owen

Repentance quote by MLJ

ULTIMATE TEST

The ultimate test of my understanding of the scriptural teaching is the amount of time I spend in prayer. As theology is ultimately the knowledge of God, the more theology I know, the more it should drive me to seek to know God. Not to know “about” Him but to know Him! The whole object of salvation is to bring me to knowledge of God… If all my knowledge does not lead me to prayer there is something wrong somewhere. ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

A Praying Man

“A praying man is a useful man; Useful to God. Even a man of limited knowledge who is a man who spends much time in the presence of God is a useful man to God and a pleasing man to God.” - Paul Washer

God sees us in Jesus

God sees us in Jesus and loves us with an infinite love. Every believer, though his faith may be weak, his fears many, his corruptions strong, his trouble great, and his temptations sore, is the object of God’s delight. — James Smith