D.A. Carson on Preaching

It is terribly easy for the preacher to shape his message to fit in with the spirit of the age. What begins as a concern to be relevant and contemporary—both admirable goals—ends up with seduction and domestication. This is especially likely when the rich and the powerful are paying our bills. At every level it is easy to fool oneself into thinking that cowardice is prudence, that silence on the moral issues of the day is a small price to pay in order to have influence in the corridors of power. Get invited to the White House (or even denominational headquarters!), and you will never inveigh against its sins. Give a lecture at a prestigious academic organ, and be sure to ruffle as few feathers as possible. Become a bishop, and instead of being the next J. C. Ryle, you sell your silence. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. God will always have his Micah and his Amos. But it happens frequently enough that we ought to return often to God’s revelation, to make sure that our message is shaped by what he has said and is neither the fruit of smart-mouthed petulance nor the oily “appropriateness” of those who cleverly say only what people want to hear.

Carson, D. A.: For the Love of God : A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word. Volume 2. Wheaton, Ill. : Crossway Books, 1998, S. 25

My prayer is that I would simply preach the Gospel according to the Scriptures. If you pray for me or any pastor, pray for that.

What Are We Concerned About

Jonah 4:10-11 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

I read this text this morning and wondered if God doesn't say, "US Christians, you are concerned about politics, the economy, and other luxuries and yet there are 2 billion people on the planet that have never heard my Gospel."

On Turning Thirty-Seven

Well I turned thirty-seven this week. It is a pretty blah age really. There isn’t much to get worked up about. I probably would not have even thought much about it had my wife and children along with hundreds of Facebook friends not reminded me of it.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is a significant year in my life because of my family history, my calling, and my current family.

At the age of thirty-seven my dad had his first heart-attack. He got one in every three to four years after that and died at the age of forty-nine. My dad was not a healthy man and he lived hard. He was a truck driver, but he also was an ineffective entrepreneur, which meant he spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on ideas that never seemed to pan out. He was also a big smoker and overweight.

The morning after my thirty-seventh birthday I ran a 10k in fifty-three minutes at Kereiakes Park, which is not bad for a man fifteen pounds over his playing weight. I am planning on running a half-marathon in the spring. I am also going to focus on doing what I am called to care for and refuse to get stressed out, especially when I have such a loving God caring for me.

Speaking of my God, I hope to serve Him well this year. But I think I am no longer considered a young pastor. I have served Living Hope Baptist Church since I was twenty-eight years old. It is still astounding to me that God called me to serve such an amazing congregation. I love them so much. They have been so kind and gracious and patient with me. It is an honor to get to serve them and to be on this wild journey with them and Jesus.

But now that I am thirty-seven I do not think I qualify as the “young guy.” As a matter of fact I am feeling a little vulnerable. I injured my leg in August and it took two months to heal. I got a cough in mid-October and I am just now over it. I am not able to recover as I once did and my kids are making greater demands on me. My adolescent daughter and older son’s sports along with the energy of my two year-old require me to be on the go more. I've got to work harder to keep up.

But I am overjoyed with my life and my wife. It is a joy to have a best-friend and help-mate with such a strong faith and kind heart like she does. We both rejoice at the goodness of God to us.

I plan to double my dad’s age at death and so I am just over one third of my way home unless the Lord returns or decides to bring me home earlier. I covet your prayers.

Hell Is NOT Safe

I have been thinking about hell a lot. Just ask the members of my church. My accountability partners pointed out to me this week that I have mentioned it every Sunday for the past eight weeks. The idea of it is always present when I preach, but they explained that I have been dwelling on it. They wondered what was up.

The day after my guys talked with me one of our seasoned saints dropped in to see me. The purpose of her visit was to check on me. She and her husband had been talking about me and were concerned that I was allowing my mind to focus too much and too often on the reality of hell. Their concern was for my health. They both felt that to dwell on that subject too much could lead to a dark emotional state. I don’t disagree with them. If I did not have the hope of heaven for myself and that I can share with others, I do not know how I could live.

I honestly had not thought about it all that much, but I think they are all correct. Since my sabbatical I have spent more time thinking and talking about eternity than I ever have in my life.

There are a lot of things that could attribute to this. For one I am getting near 40 and my father died at the age of 49 so I could be considering the reality of my own mortality. It may also be that the Scripture reading I have been doing points to the eternal so often. You can’t read Spurgeon a week without having him saying something about it.

I have also been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis. I love C.S. Lewis, but the way he describes hell is, I believe, inconsistent with Scripture. He was a very sophisticated and intellectual man. I have the greatest respect for him. But I do not think he does hell justice. I believe it is going to be far worse than he describes. He makes it sound like hell is the worst of humanity. That is true, but it is also the worst of everything. There are going to be demons there. The Bible speaks of a burning fire and a never ending suffering. Hope is lost. Grace is gone. There is an awareness of God, but the thought of Him is terrifying and painful. Spiritual, emotional, and physical suffering is continuous and strenuous. Others are screaming. Demons are raging. Fear abounds.

I hope this doesn’t mess up your day, but I think it is very important that we understand that hell is not safe. Christians have the truth that can set sinners free from this deserved damnation. We must take it serious and do all we can to avoid it and to help other people avoid it.

Quotes from Yesterday's Sermon PLUS One

I had several people ask me to post the quotes I used from Blackaby and Lewis in yesterday's sermon "The Challenge of Suffering" that you can listen to hear. I also add this one from Carson's devotion today.

“Living a godly life will not insulate you from hardship. Paul said that the more blameless your life, the more likely you will be persecuted. According to Paul, “evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse” (2 Tim. 3:13). As the world increasingly embraces sin, worldly people are becoming increasingly intolerant of godliness. Darkness cannot tolerate light; the more your life illuminates the presence of Christ, the more you should expect opposition from the forces of darkness. Your Christlike nature will be offensive to those in rebellion against Christ’s Lordship.” – Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God Day by Day, October 12

“You must have often wondered why the enemy [God] does not make more use of his power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree he chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the irresistible and the indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of his scheme forbids him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as his felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For his ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve … Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all supports and incentive. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs – to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish … He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand … Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” –The Demon Uncle Srewtape in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters

Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Faithfulness is not dependent upon an escape hatch. They choose faithfulness because it is the right thing to do, even if it costs them their lives. The courage we need in this anti-Christian age is courteous and steadfast. It never apologizes for God. It joyfully believes that God can do anything, but it is prepared to suffer rather than compromise hearty obedience.
Carson, D. A.: For the Love of God

Grace, Grace, God's Grace

Luke 23:39-42 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Dr. Hanna has beautifully said: “Here, amid the triumph of enemies, and the failure of the faith of friends, is one who discerns, even through the dark envelope which covers it, the hidden glory of the Redeemer, and openly hails him as his Lord and King. Marvellous, indeed, the faith in our Lord’s divinity which sprung up so suddenly in such an unlikely region. Are we wrong in saying that, at the particular moment when that testimony to Christ’s divinity was borne, there was not another full believer in that divinity but the dying thief?… And what a tenderness of conscience is here; what deep reverence for God; what devout submission to the divine will; what entire relinquishment of all personal grounds of confidence before God; what a vivid realising of the world of spirits; what a humble trust in Jesus; what a zeal for the Saviour’s honour; what an indignation at the unworthy treatment he was receiving! May we not take that catalogue of the fruits of genuine repentance which an apostle has drawn up for us, and applying it here, say of this man’s repentance: Behold what carefulness it wrought in him; yea, what clearing of himself; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge! In all things he approved himself to be a changed man, in all the desires and dispositions and purposes of his heart.”

Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

The dying Saviour reigns on the cross, and allots a place in paradise to his companion in death. Here is no hint of purgatory, the pardoned thief is with Jesus that very day. So also shall all believers be with Jesus immediately they leave the body.

Spurgeon, C. H.: The Interpreter: Spurgeon's Devotional Bible. Bellingham, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009, S. 612

Assured of Salvation in Christ

I believe God saves and perseveres in saving all those who believe in Christ. As we baptists like to say, "Once a person is saved, they are always saved." They are not saved because of their saving actions. Those who are saved are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.

What are we saved from? We are saved from a life separated from God. We are saved from an eternity separated from God. We are saved from the power of sin so that we are able to know God and follow His lead. We are saved from a life that lives for temporal things.

We are not only saved from terrible things. We are also saved for wonderful things. We are saved for God's glory. We are saved for a life of joy, peace, and significance. We are saved for a life of meaning.

Salvation is more than a concept. Salvation is an experience. It is something that happens. Assurance of salvation is more than a concept. Our assurance of our eternal hope in Christ is an experience. It is something that we can examine. Our assurance of salvation is something we can assess the veracity of.

We are told in 2 Corinthians 13:5 to "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"

I am extremely concerned about a person I know right now who claims to be saved. This person claims Christ, but is not living for Christ.

What we believe ultimately defines who we are. Who we are will determine what we do. If we consistently do ungodly things fully aware that we are disobeying God unconcerned about the way we are dishonoring God, it is because we do not genuinely believe. If we believe in the Lordship of Jesus, we are slaves to Him. If we are His slaves, we obey our master. Any continual blatant disobedience to the Lord communicates what a person believes and who they are.

I do not like to cause people to doubt their salvation. That is what the devil does. What I do feel compelled to do, is to encourage people to test their faith and make sure it is authentic so they are assured of what they believe and who they are in Christ. They will know based on what they are doing in obedience to Him.

John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.