Are We There Yet?

From Joel Beeke’s The Family at Church, some tips on preparing for the preached word:

1.  Prepare yourself and your family with prayer-  pray for the conversion of sinners, the edification of God’s people, for your pastor’s preparation and delivery, and for yourself.  Pray that you, your family, and others will come as those in need of the gospel and the Word.

2.  Come with a hearty appetite for the Word-  Heed I Peter 2:2 and come as a newborn baby longing for milk.  Realize that preparation for the Word begins Saturday evening.  Get a good night’s rest for you and your family if at all possible.

3.  Meditate on the importance of the preached Word-  The God of creation and redemption is meeting with you!  Thomas Boston said, “The voice is on earth, but the speaker is in heaven!”  Remember that every sermon counts for eternity as salvation comes through faith and faith through hearing God’s Word (Rom. 10:13-16).   Remember that every Lord’s Day you are receiving spiritual food for the week ahead.  The Puritans called this day “the market day of the soul.”   They went weekly to stock up on supplies- so do we in a spiritual sense!

4.  Remember as you enter worship you are entering a battleground-  the enemy of our souls would desire to distract us from the Word.  Yesterday’s ball game and tomorrow’s work day will conspire to pull us away from the hearing of the Word.  Pray for strength to overcome these and other enemies.

5.  Come with a loving, expectant faith-  Come as a Mary and not a Martha.  Be ready and prepared to sit at the feet of Christ listening to Him speak in the Scriptures.

“Honor everyone.  Love the brotherhood.  Fear God.  Honor the emperor.”  I Peter 2:17 (ESV)

That includes Presidents and Presidents-elect, I’m comfortably certain.

Dr. Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY, gives this helpful exhortation:

There must be absolutely no denial of the legitimacy of President-Elect Obama’s election and no failure to accord this new President the respect and honor due to anyone elected to that high office.  Failure in this responsibility is disobedience to a clear biblical command.

Beyond this, we must commit ourselves to pray for this new President, for his wife and family, for his administration, and for the nation.  We are commanded to pray for rulers, and this new President faces challenges that are not only daunting but potentially disastrous.  May God grant him wisdom.  He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office.  May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We must pray that God will protect this nation even as the new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We must pray that God would change President-Elect Obama’s mind and heart on issues of our crucial concern.  May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light.  We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office.  God is sovereign, after all.

You can read the entire post on his blog.

This from Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity:

The good news [i.e. the gospel] is that Christ’s righteousness is greater than my sin.  Fully absolved in Christ, I am free to confess my sin, receive the assurance of pardon, and go on in my imperfect yet Spirit-led obedience.

…The gospel is so odd, even to us Christians, that we have to get it again and again.  That is why God has graciously created different avenues for getting it to us:  He proclaims it by the mouth of another in Christ’s name, bathes me in it with water, and puts it in my hand through bread and wine.   (p.121)

On this day, October 31st, in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the chapel in Wittenburg, Germany.  This was the modern day equivalent of posting to an extremely well read internet message board.  The crux of Luther’s writings was to decry the sale of indulgences in order to finance the building of St. Peter’s in Rome.  What was an indulgence?  It was a ticket of sorts to free yourself or a deceased loved one from years spent in purgatory.  Purgatory was the place where one went after death to be “purged” of all sin making them truly fit for heaven.  Luther saw how the sale of these indulgences struck at the heart of the gospel- that man is saved by grace alone through faith alone.  Luther lit a match that set the entire known world on fire.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ligonier is offering a limited time special for the Reformation Study Bible for any size donation to their ministry!  Check it out HERE.

R.C. Sproul provides some very helpful insights on our responsibility to vote.  I strongly encourage you to read the entire essay posted at the Ligonier Ministries blog that you can access HERE.  Here are some excerpts:

But here is what I’m going to tell you to do when you vote. As a Christian you have obligations imposed upon your conscious that in some sense other people don’t have, although they should have. And the first thing is this: You have to understand what a vote is. The word vote comes from the Latin votum, which means ‘will’ or choice. And when you go to the ballot box and you vote, you are not there to vote for what’s going to benefit you necessarily. Your vote is not a license to impose your selfish desires upon the rest of the country. You only have the right to vote for what is right. And not only do you have the right to vote for what is right, but when you vote you have the duty to vote for what is right.

Sproul also has this to say that I want to endorse:

I know that abortion is not the number one issue in this campaign because it has become acceptable. Just like slavery became acceptable. But it cannot be acceptable to ethical people. The people of God have to rise up and say ‘NO’! We are not asking the state to be the church but we must say to the state, “Please be the state. God ordained you to protect, maintain, and preserve the sanctity of life, and you are not doing it.” So that has to be on your mind when you walk into that voting booth.

Interesting quote from the first chapter of Michael Horton’s soon to be released book, Christless Christianity:

What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over a half century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio. Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia, all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am,” and the churches would be full every Sunday . . . where Christ is not preached.

What is Barnhouse’s point?  Where Christ is not preached, religion is preached.  Where Christ is not preached self righteousness reigns.  The Evil One would be very content for people to trust in their own morality, their own record and not flee to Christ.  Barnhouse reinforces the idea that Christians not only repent of their sin but also of their self-righteousness.

This past week I attended the Ligonier Pastor’s Conference in Orlando, Fl.  This was an excellent week of fellowship and encouragment.  We heard multiple times from R.C. Sproul, Sinclair Ferguson (Sr. Pastor of First Presbyterian of Columbia, SC), and Steve Lawson (Sr. Pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist in Mobile, Al).  In addition to preaching/teaching there were several Q & A sessions- which are always a highlight.  We were fed extremely well- I’m hesitant to get on the scale!  We were also housed quite comfortably in the Marriott of Lake Mary.  A particular highlight for me was to spend those days with my best friend from seminary, Ty Blackburn.  Ty pastors the Providence Church in Duluth, GA where he has been for 15 years.  Ty and his wife, Patti, were our neighbors at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS and Connie and I were especially close to them both.

What did I learn?  I reviewed my notes just this morning.  I think the main thing I came away with was to keep the main thing the main thing.  What do I mean by that?  What was continually stressed was to preach the gospel faithfully through the regular exposition of Scripture. Read the rest of this entry »

Just got back from Orlando today.  I’d like to give some thoughts on the Ligonier Ministries Pastor’s Conference tomorrow.  The speakers were R.C. Sproul, Sinclair Ferguson, and Steve Lawson.  It was very good.  One cool thing that happened was that as I was getting onto I-4 in Orlando I was stopped by a motorcycle cop.  This was not for traffic ticket but to allow John McCain’s Straight Talk Express to cruise by surrounded by a fleet of motorcyle cops.  Pretty cool.