Presbyterian & Reformed

As we come to the end of our own 8 week study of the Disciplines as outlined by Foster, Timmy Brister has posted a 45 minute or so interview with Donald Whitney, a leading evangelical writer on the disciplines. You may recall we leaned heavily on Dr. Whitney’s teaching on Solitude a week or two back.

I encourage you to check out the interview between Timmy and Dr. Whitney. You can follow the link here to listen

ps. I’m so glad to be back in Omaha!

How easy it is to roll the blame of our cold hearts over upon the shoulders of our religious leaders! It is refreshing to observe how Luther, with his breezy good sense, dealt with complaints of lack of attractiveness in his evangelical preachers. He had not sent them out to please people, he said, and their function was not to interest or to entertain; their function was to teach the saving truth of God, and, if they did that, it was frivolous for people in danger of perishing for want of the truth to object to the vessel in which it was offered to them. When the people of Torgau, for instance, wished to dismiss their pastors, because, they said, their voices were too weak to fill the churches, Luther simply responded, “That’s an old song: better have some difficulty in hearing the gospel than no difficulty at all in hearing what is very far from the gospel.” “People cannot have their ministers exactly as they wish,” he declares again, “they should thank God for the pure word,” and not demand St. Augustines and St. Ambroses to preach it to them. If a pastor pleases the Lord Jesus and is faithful to him,—there is none so great and mighty but he ought to be pleased with him, too. The point, you see, is that men who are hungry for the truth and get it ought not to be exigent as to the platter in which it is served to them. And they will not be.

B.B. Warfield; The Religious Life of Theological Students

I saw this today over at the Reformation Theology Blog and had to share!

It’s rather fashionable to waft on about the impending loss of the faith to Islam, secularism, or various other sects and heresies. It is true that we are to be diligent and press on in fighting the good fight; we are not cultural hyper-Calvinists any more than we are evangelistic hyper-Calvinists. So, press on! Yet, take courage from these words of Spurgeon who reminds us who the real Captain is. (This comes from John Piper’s excellent biographical study on Spurgeon.)

You never met an old salt, down by the sea, who was in trouble because the tide had been ebbing out for hours. No! He waits confidently for the turn of the tide, and it comes in due time. Yonder rock has been uncovered during the last half-hour, and if the sea continues to ebb out for weeks, there will be no water in the English Channel, and the French will walk over from Cherbourg. Nobody talks in that childish way, for such an ebb will never come. Nor will we speak as though the gospel would be routed, and eternal truth driven out of the land. We serve an almighty Master … If our Lord does but stamp His foot, He can win for Himself all the nations of the earth against heathenism, and Mohammedanism, and Agnosticism, and Modern-thought, and every other foul error. Who is he that can harm us if we follow Jesus? How can His cause be defeated? At His will, converts will flock to His truth as numerous as the sands of the sea … Wherefore be of good courage, and go on your way singing [and preaching!]:

The winds of hell have blown
The world its hate hath shown,
Yet it is not o’erthrown.
Hallelujah for the Cross!
It shall never suffer loss!
The Lord of hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob is our refuge

I struggle with inertia. It creeps up on me in many facets of my life. My wife well understands the fact that the hardest part about getting me to do anything is to actually get me started. I enjoy going with her to see a movie, but it’s a hard road to plough to actually get me motivated enough to get up and moving towards the door. I have a great time wherever we wind up together, but grumble in an unfair way during the first few minutes of motion.

So what? Well, I tend to be this way in my spiritual life also. I tend to get to the point where I don’t feel I have any great (public) sins - so can’t I just take a break from all this flesh-mortificating? Owen helps me see in chapter two of his treatise on mortifying the flesh, our June Puritan Paperback, that no, no I can’t.

1. We will never be sinless this side of life. Sin will continue to infuse our person-ness as long as we draw breath.

Indwelling sin always abides whilst we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified. The vain, foolish, and ignorant disputes of men about perfect keeping the commands of God, of perfection in this life, of being wholly and perfectly dead to sin, I meddle not now with. … We have a “body of death,” Romans 7:24; from whence we are not delivered but by the death of our bodies, Phil. 3:21.

2. This indwelling sin is not some sort of passive, inert thing. I sometimes see this sin as like a stain on a countertop. It lays there and pollutes the surface of the kitchen by its presence, but it does not penetrate through. Moreover, it does not activelyburrow through the countertop. It’s just ‘there’. Owen disabuses me of this foolish (and dangerous) notion:

Sin doth not only still abide in us, but is still acting, still labouring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh. When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion. Sin doth not only abide in us, but “the law of the members is still rebelling against the law of the mind,” Rom. 7:23; and “the spirit that dwells in us lusteth to envy,” James 4:5. It is always in continual work;

Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. The apostle tells us what the works and fruits of it are, Gal. 5:19-21, “The works of the flesh are manifest, which are, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.” You know what it did in David and sundry others. Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head.

3. The dangers are real, says Owen, in the neglect of this struggle. By laying downs arms against a yet remaining, vigorous enemy, we forfeit the battle. If you and I rest against mortifying sin and we are not completely swept aside into destruction and ruin, it is purely by the restraining grace of God and NOT because we have so perfected ourselves as to be immune to the workings of sin.

Where sin, through the neglect of mortification, gets a considerable victory, it breaks the bones of the soul, Ps. 31:10, and makes a man weak, sick, and ready to die, Ps. 38:3-5, so that he cannot look up, Ps. 60:12, Isa. 33:24; and when poor creatures will take blow by blow, wound after wound, foil after foil, and never rouse up themselves to a vigorous opposition, can they expect any thing but to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and that their souls should bleed to death? 2 John 8. Indeed, it is a sad thing to consider the fearful issues of this neglect, which lie under our eyes every day. See we not those, whom we knew humble, melting, broken-hearted Christians, tender and fearful to offend, zealous for God and all his ways, his Sabbaths and ordinances, grown, through neglect of watching unto this duty, earthly, carnal, cold, wrathful, complying with the men of the world and things of the world, to the scandal of religion and the fearful temptation of them that know them? 

 4. Given the danger, given the risk, given the price for sleeping on watch, it is a most urgent duty to continue to mortify sin. Owen posits this at the beginning of the chapter and summarizes it again at the end:

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. Your being dead with Christ virtually, your being quickened with him, will not excuse you from this work.

[Y]et sin doth so remain, so act and work in the best of believers, whilst they live in this world, that the constant daily mortification of it is all their days incumbent on them.

5. Owen speaks directly to my heart thereafter and, I believe, puts his finger on the pressing sore of the church today. He points out that we are saturated with blessings and opportunity that have greatly expanded the bounds or freedoms of both believers individually and the broader faith they adhere to. And yet where we would expect to see a great flourishing of righteousness, we see rather the opposite in our churches. And if amongst those who are truly saved we see such poverty of spritual fruit and abundance of unmortified hearts, how can be shocked if our communities reflect this same uncircumcised lifestyle?  We pray for revival, yet feel it for ‘the other guy’ and not for us ’saved’ folks already in church. I think perhaps rather than praying for revival to see outsiders gathered in, we should pray for persecution, to see the dross burned off. Then, I think, revival will come.

Where almost is that professor who owes his conversion to these days of light, and so talks and professes at such a rate of spirituality as few in former days were, in any measure, acquainted with (I will not judge them, but perhaps boasting what the Lord hath done in them), that doth not give evidence of a miserably unmortified heart? If vain spending of time, idleness, unprofitableness in men’s places, envy, strife, variance, emulations, wrath, pride, worldliness, selfishness, 1 Cor. 1, be badges of Christians, we have them on us and amongst us in abundance. And if it be so with them who have much light, and which, we hope, is saving, what shall we say of some who would be accounted religious and yet despise the gospel light, and for the duty we have in hand, know no more of it but what consists in men’s denying themselves sometimes in outward enjoyments, which is one of the outmost branches of it, which they will seldom practice?

Anyway, I still struggle with Owen exploding my meager intelligence and the need to read and re-read (and re-re-read) Owen to get what he is saying. But like my need to overcome that initial resistance to get up and do something with my wife, I find that once I make that effort and start moving, the time together (with her or J.O.) is richly rewarding.

Tony, over at the Shepherd’s Scrapbook, is having an open G.K. Chesterton ‘Favorite Quote’ weekend. It will be interesting to see what quotes come out as favorites. It may even push me to actually read something by him!

Before I start, let me just disclaim that I have been involved in facilitating the abortion of a child I fathered. I did so willingly and without equivocating. So this is not me pontificating as one who ‘can’t understand if they haven’t been through it” as I have no doubt those who disagree will state.

Since that particular sin, my understanding of personhood has been radically transformed by coming into relationship with Jesus and getting a real grip on what makes a person a person. A hint … it’s not determined by cell count or spatial relationship to a uterus. Interestingly, Obama would agree with me. Having opposed a bill making it illegal to kill late term abortions that survived the delivery process, Obama has declared that he does not care if a baby is inter-utero or ex-utero, if the parent’s desire is to kill the infant, Senator Obama believes they have an express right to do so.

That said, you choose who to vote for. It’s been said that Americans get the President they deserve. So stay home; vote for Obama; do what your conscience guides you to do. But realize your choices have consequences. It’s time to realize that the myth of neutrality is precisely that - a myth. You can’t divorce parts of a candidate’s thinking from the whole and play mind games like “I’m not voting Democrat, I’m voting AGAINST Republicans.

Thanks to Tim Challies for highlighting the following couple of posts.

 From Doug Groothuis:
As I wrote earlier, this is no time for Christian conservatives to pout and refuse to vote. Politics is the art of the possible. It is not the church. You should not call a pastor who defects from orthodox theology. But in politics, you may need to support someone who does not share many of your views. To be a perfectionist and a purist (if you will) is suicidal in this case.  …

 Keep reading at  The Constructive Curmudgeon

Joe Carter:
I have my own shibboleth that I used to identify members of the class, Civilized Human Beings. I call it the infanticide shibboleth. Opposing the blatant killing of human infants is admittedly a low bar of entry. But I figure you have to start somewhere. …

Keep reading at the evangelical outpost.

No doubt some of you will be offended. It’s possible that people in my own family dearer to me than I am to myself will be offended as I know they have different opinions than I do.

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Due to what might best be described as a superfluity of naughtiness, my puritan reading this year has … slipped.

Anyway, June seemed as good a month as any to get back on the wagon and pick up where I left off. This month sees me working through Owen’s work on mortification. It’s tough. Or I’m ignorant. Probably a bit of both … but reading Owen for me is like trying to drain the ocean with a teaspoon. I read a sentance and realize that, like an accordian, it’s really a paragraph - a chapter - condensed into Owenese thought and much chewing of his words is required for true digestion. That’s not to say it is not good, just hard work!
For instance:

Indwelling sin is compared to a person, a living person, called “the old man,” with his faculties, and properties, his wisdom, craft, subtlety, strength; this, says the apostle, must be killed, put to death, mortified, — that is, have its power, life, vigour, and strength, to produce its effects, taken away by the Spirit. It is, indeed, meritoriously, and by way of example, utterly mortified and slain by the cross of Christ; and the “old man” is thence said to be “crucified with Christ,” Romans 6:6, and ourselves to be “dead” with him, verse 8, and really initially in regeneration, Romans 6:3-5, when a principle contrary to it, and destructive of it, Gal. 5:17, is planted in our hearts; but the whole work is by degrees to be carried on towards the perfection all our days. Of this more in the process of our discourse. The intendment of the apostle in this prescription of the duty mentioned is, — that the mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh is the constant duty of believers.

Now, I get it. But about halfway through, right around “principle”, my brain seems to reach a saturation point of commas, semi-colons, clauses and wheretofores and I need to go back to the start of the paragraph and begin reading again. Seriously, it takes me 4 or more times typically to get to the point of what Owen says in his paragraph. But like climbing a hill, one is rewarded with a striking view at the end of the labor.

Check out Owen online, here if you too would stand on the shoulders of giants and see futher than perhaps you could see from where you currently stand. The view, like the labor itself, is a reward well worth apprehending.

Each summer Al Mohler suggests a list of books for summer reading, some 10 in total. I would never get through them all!

Today, he finished his list of 10 books dealing with history that would be great on a summer reading list. As I say, I will not be able to read all 10 but the one on the Pax Americana, Roosevelt and Churchill looks particularly interesting and will probably be the cherry I pick from the list …

Peter Clarke, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana (Bloomsbury Press, 2008).

2 Timothy 4:13
When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.

…How rebuked they are by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching for at least thirty years , and he still wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.” C. H. Spurgeon