The Problem of Forgiveness
Sometimes we are unable to distinguish between forgiveness and feeling forgiven.
What is the authority in our lives? Our feelings, which are subjective, or the Word of God, which is objective truth? The Christian must live practically each day by the Word of God rather than by his feelings. The issue of forgiveness is not whether we feel forgiven, but whether we have repented. If we... Continue Reading
“O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”
This powerful poem expresses a sure faith in God through the most difficult of circumstances.
[God’s love] is greater than anything human. Our only response is to give back to God the life we owe Him anyway. Our life, borrowed from Him, is like a little stream feeding into the immensely greater ocean of His life and love. As a young man, Scotsman George Matheson (1842–1906) exhibited a quick... Continue Reading
Pro-Gay Theology Invents a New Sin
The Bible doesn’t condemn a particular kind of homosexual acts. It simply condemns homosexual acts.
Notice what pro-gay theology advocates have done. They’ve invented a new type of sin. They’ve taken an existing sin (homosexual sex) and divided it up into two flavors: sinful homosexual sex and non-sinful homosexual sex—a distinction foreign to the corpus of Scripture. It’s no longer homosexual sex that’s sin. It’s abusive homosexual sex that’s sin. The added... Continue Reading
Why Pastors Must Be More than Professionals
Those who fear God come to know him in such a way that they actually become holy, faithful, loving, and merciful, like him.
Joyful, loving, humble, and jealous for God, the right fear of God makes the difference between hollow, devilish religiosity and beautiful, Christlike believers. It also makes the difference between hollow, grasping, professionalized ministries and life-giving ministries of delighted and satisfied integrity. Becoming like God The knowledge of God that the fear of the Lord... Continue Reading
The Neoliberal Globalist Technocracy As A Religion
A world ruled by “experts” with personal righteousness and tribal membership on the line.
What follows cultural heresy is cultural damnation, cancel culture. Cultural-heretics get shut out of middle-culture for being unrighteous and disagreeing with the experts. The alternative to cultural-heresy is cultural-orthodoxy. Agree with the media-priest sermons and what is righteous and you’ll be righteous, you’ll be safe on the righteous path. You’ll be blessed with the comfort... Continue Reading
The Impossibility of Reconciliation
Finding true reconciliation with God through the redemptive work of Christ.
God the Father sent God the Son, His only Begotten, to reconcile God to man; to ransom His elect to Himself, redeeming them from the penalty of sin and purchasing them from the bondage to sin (Mark 10:45). He paid the ransom with His precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). “Be reconciled to God.” II... Continue Reading
Living Up to Christian Principles in a Fallen World
Christian celebrity culture is toxic. A central tenet of Christianity is that we are sinful creatures, prone to do wrong and then cover it up for our own benefit. That is why we need salvation. So, it is profoundly strange that so many Christian institutions seem to be deliberately set up to... Continue Reading
Justice Pursued with Hatred? (Guinness)
Many people today have a skewed view of justice.
The past is always present. It is certainly not dead. But forgiveness and reconciliation can draw the poison out of hate so that the past no longer kills the present but liberates it to go forward freely into the future. Through repentance and forgiveness, the poison is prevented from spreading. The ball and chain is... Continue Reading
The Only Tears In Heaven
The path that leads from birth to Beulah is a path stained by tears.
I do wonder, might there still be tears in heaven? Didn’t God create our bodies with glands to produce them, with eyes to glisten with them, with cheeks to display them? Though we weep at our lowest moments, don’t we also weep at our highest? How many tears do we shed over the course... Continue Reading
10 Things You Should Know about the African Church
The number of Christians in Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century was about 9 million; by the end of the twentieth century it was about 380 million.
When church leaders express concern about an important matter in society, local and national leaders tend to listen. This means that the church is able to speak into the moral issues of the day and gain a hearing. This is one reason why the leaders of African nations have been able to withstand the pressure... Continue Reading
When Darkness is My Closest Friend
Is depression a sign of immaturity, a lack of faith, or a form of sin?
Depression’s benefits? While I wish I never had to battle this foe, I do see that our Lord has used my wrestling against depression to advance my sanctification. It has deepened my dependence on God, intensified my prayers, and forced me out of self-reliant independence. I’m beginning to write this just a few days before... Continue Reading
Inside Planned Parenthood’s Gender Factory
An Ex-Reproductive Health Assistant Speaks Out: “Trans-Identifying Kids are Cash Cows"
“Nationally, Planned Parenthood is the second largest provider of Gender Affirming Hormone Care.” It seems reasonable to conclude that hormone treatments—pricey as they are—now contribute materially to Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. A month ago, I was sent a Tweetstorm written by a woman who had worked as a “reproductive health assistant” at Planned Parenthood for about 18... Continue Reading
The Real Tragedy Facing Our Nation
We refuse to face the reality of human sinfulness and the judgment of God.
We need preachers who are confident of the truth and power of the gospel, men who will faithfully declare both the judgment of God against sin and the good news of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. On a frosty morning shortly after the beginning of the new year I spotted a message traced out by... Continue Reading
7 Reasons Why God Makes a “Crook” in a Christian’s Lot
It is helpful to consider God’s purposes in your adversities so that you can respond in a manner that brings glory to him.
Christians do not need to fear the “crooks” God allows in their lives but can instead rest in God’s faithfulness. Boston reminds us to keep our focus on God’s grace, even in our suffering. Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? — Ecclesiastes 7:13 You may be... Continue Reading
What to Know About The Equality Act
Whatever crumb of religious liberty that might be left after enactment of the Equality Act would likely be swept up by the Do No Harm Act.
In the Biden Administration, HHS will be less about public health and more about the imposition of divisive secular social policy. The Equality Act and the Do No Harm Act will be the cudgels by which the administration executes these policies. Two bills have lingered between the Democratic House and Republican Senate for the... Continue Reading
Reformed Theology in Full Harvest
The Story of The Westminster Confession of Faith
A good confession that is well-known offers a tool to help Christian churches identify other churches with whom they may have much in common, and with whom they might profitably plant churches or engage in doctrinally rich gospel ministry. Of course, it is only a tool. As with hammers, so with confessions: it is not... Continue Reading
The Calling to Excellence
The Christian is called to Herculean efforts of discipline and achievement that would make the labor and industry of the world pale in comparison.
Good works are not the cause of justification, but they are the fruit of justification. One could even say that works are the indispensable fruit of justification. If a man says he has faith but has no works, can that faith save him? That’s the question the Apostle James asks in James 2. If a man says he... Continue Reading
Fearing God Is a Matter of the Heart
We are made to know God in such a way that our hearts tremble at his beauty and splendor.
The cross is the most fertile soil for the fear of God. Why? First, because the cross, by the forgiveness it brings, liberates us from sinful fear. But more than that: it also cultivates the most exquisitely fearful adoration of the Redeemer. The Heart’s Inclinations The fear of God is not a state of... Continue Reading
Biden Dismisses Uighur Genocide as Part of China’s ‘Different Norms’
“Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow,” - President Biden
“China is trying very hard to become the world leader. And to get that moniker and be able to do that, they have to gain the confidence of other countries. And as long as they are engaged in activity that is contrary to basic human rights, it’s going to be hard for them to do... Continue Reading
Transgenderism Stems From Feminism’s Failure to Deal With Marilyn Monroe
When “woman” again means something beyond a choice or an object, sanity will be restored to American sexuality.
Marilyn is a symbol of Objectified Femininity, such as is often seen in Playboy magazine. The sexual revolution, so called, did not result in the liberation of women but in a new definition of women as sexual entities of a certain sort. Where “woman” previously meant any biological female—with the ensuing range of possible attributes, personalities, and physical... Continue Reading
The OC — A New Burned Over District? Lessons to Be Learned
This was an amazing time, and I am thankful to have witnessed much of it. But, I for one, am glad it is over.
“Was the rise of the buzz, a genuine work of God?” Based upon the fruit of so many people coming to faith in Jesus Christ, that answer can only be an unqualified “yes” (especially early-on). But did the buzz go off the rails and end up doing great damage to the cause of Christ? The... Continue Reading
Fighting Error in the Church
Tell me why we should not be prepared to detect and refute falsehood in the Church?
Revelation speaks of the warfare of God against apostate Judaism, the first persecutor of the church, and Rome, the second persecutor, and predicts the fall. It also mentions cults like the Nicolatians. Sometimes it may seem that we spend too much time refuting falsehood. All of us are chagrined at the preponderance of error both... Continue Reading
The Authority of Scripture over the Order of Corporate Worship
If the Bible is the sufficient authority for our worship, then even the structure of our services should follow what God has given to us in Scripture.
Likewise, when John is given a similar vision of heavenly worship, the order of what happens is the same. From creation to consummation, the corporate worship of God’s people is a memorial—a reenactment—of the “theo-logic” of true worship: God’s call for his people to commune with him through the sacrifice of atonement that he has... Continue Reading
Lament: A Faith-Filled Response to Calamity
As individuals, we have our own way of processing suffering, but how do we process suffering corporately?
Sin often moves beyond individuals and infects entire communities. Jonah’s sin also put the sailors in the storm (Jonah 1:4). Christians are even said to suffer together, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Membership in the body of Christ brings shared suffering. Grief,... Continue Reading
How the Bible Defines Anxiety
The Word of God first helps us by defining anxiety so that we will understand precisely what we are up against.
Anxiety is not mere concern. It is not the type of fear that helps us survive in a dangerous situation. It is not concern for the moment that we put our sixteen-year-old behind the wheel for the first time or for our sick child’s health. Rather, it is an ongoing, fearful restlessness wherein we imagine... Continue Reading
Whatever Happened to Godliness?
Our indifference towards godliness is alarming, especially when we consider the promises that the Bible associates with it.
Every believer is called to pursue godliness. So how do we do this? For starters, we need to understand that this is not a legalistic endeavor. We don’t have the commitment or willpower to somehow make ourselves godly. A life given over to God can only be fueled and sustained by grace. An Abandoned... Continue Reading
Loving God’s Beauty
"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us”. - A. W. Tozer
What then should inform the Christian imagination that inclines the heart towards union with God and ordinate love? If God’s beauty is the ultimate motivator of love, then the Christian life should have the idea of God’s beauty at its very core. We’ve defined beauty as “the Most Lovely loving the Most Lovely”. This came... Continue Reading
The Fruit of the Spirit: Joy
There’s mystery in God becoming man, but perhaps a deeper mystery still in Divine joy becoming a Man of Sorrows.
To what purpose did the Son of God become a Man of Sorrows? It was to take sin-soaked sorrowful men and deliver them from their wayward pleasures and bring them into eternal happiness. “Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted… Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew... Continue Reading
‘Quiet, CS Lewis is On’: Why Subject of New film Could Be Right For Now
Norman Stone’s The Most Reluctant Convert follows author’s conversion from atheism to Christianity
McLean said Lewis went from “vigorous debunker of religion to the most respected Christian writer apologist of the 20th century” and that the questions he explored are complex, a challenge for a drama: “But the words that we use are Lewis’s. We have the rights. That helps because we’re not as smart as he is.... Continue Reading
Strange Authority Speakers: 12 Concerns
If several of these are true of someone you listen to, maybe you shouldn’t be listening to them?
At the end of the presentation, are listeners thinking about the speaker, about their ministry, about signing up for their mailing list? Are they thinking about themselves and how they need to learn more or try harder? Or do listeners have the gaze of their hearts fixed on Christ in a genuinely helpful and transformative... Continue Reading
