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

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

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

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

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. 

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?

SELF-PRESERVATION COWARDS

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

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

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.