The King’s Commission

Quote from the Pleasing Pain blog:

“No messenger of a king bearing the king’s message ever waited to earn his right share the word from his king.  He shared it, because that was his duty!  So too, all Christians are ambassadors for Christ, and it is our joy to share the gospel with as many as we can.  If Christ has given us approval to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations, we need not earn another’s approval to share the gospel, the message of our king.” (Emphasis added)

Matthew 28: 16-20

We Must All Up and Be Doing

 

 “I dread slack hands in the vineyard — we must all up and be doing.”  — Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

MP3 Audio about this remarkable Christian woman available for download here. (Source: The Christian Institute, UK)

The Grace of Prayer

“Some are loath to do good because they feel their hearts rebelling, and duties turn out badly. We should not avoid good actions because of the infirmities attending them. Christ looks more at the good in them which he means to cherish than the ill in them which he means to abolish. Though eating increases a disease, a sick man will still eat, so that nature may gain strength against the disease. So, though sin cleaves to what we do, yet let us do it, since we have to deal with so good a Lord, and the more strife we meet with, the more acceptance we shall have. Christ loves to taste of the good fruits that come from us, even though they will always savor of our old nature.”

“A Christian complains he cannot pray. `Oh, I am troubled with so many distracting thoughts, and never more than now!’ But has he put into your heart a desire to pray? Then he will hear the desires of his own Spirit in you. `We know not what we should pray for as we ought’ (nor how to do anything else as we ought), but the Spirit helps our infirmities with `groanings which cannot be uttered’ (Rom. 8:26), which are not hid from God. `My groaning is not hid from thee’ (Psa. 38:9). God can pick sense out of a confused prayer. These desires cry louder in his ears than your sins. Sometimes a Christian has such confused thoughts that he can say nothing but, as a child, cries, `O Father’, not able to express what he needs, like Moses at the Red Sea. These stirrings of spirit touch the heart of God and melt him into compassion towards us, when they come from the Spirit of adoption, and from a striving to be better.”

“`Oh, but is it possible’, thinks the misgiving heart, `that so holy a God should accept such a prayer?’ Yes, he will accept that which is his own, and pardon that which is ours. Jonah prayed in the fish’s belly (Jon. 2:1), being burdened with the guilt of sin, yet God heard him. Let not, therefore, infirmities discourage us. James takes away this objection (James 5:17). Some might object, `If I were as holy as Elijah, then my prayers might be regarded.’ `But,’ says he, ‘Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are.’ He had his passions as well as we, or do we think that God heard him because he was without fault? Surely not. But look at the promises: `Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee’ (Psa. 50:15). `Ask, and it shall be given you’ (Matt. 7:7) and others like these. God accepts our prayers, though weak, because we are his own children, and they come from his own Spirit; because they are according to his own will; and because they are offered in Christ’s mediation, and he takes them, and mingles them with his own incense (Rev. 8:3).”

“There is never a holy sigh, never a tear we shed, which is lost. And as every grace increases by exercise of itself, so does the grace of prayer. By prayer we learn to pray. So, likewise, we should take heed of a spirit of discouragement in all other holy duties, since we have so gracious a Saviour. Pray as we are able, hear as we are able, strive as we are able, do as we are able, according to the measure of grace received. God in Christ will cast a gracious eye upon that which is his own.”

Extract from The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes.

No Other Comment Needed

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John Calvin on Prayer

“Prayer has not been instituted that we might arrogantly exalt ourselves before God, nor that we should extol our dignity, but so that we might admit our poverty, groaning like children telling their father about their troubles. Such a way of thinking should, rather be like a spur, moving us to pray even more.”

“There are two things which should really stir us up to pray: first of all, God’s directive which commands us to pray; and then the promise by which he assures us that we will receive what we ask.”

(John Calvin)

Prayer Not Prayed

How many pray the Lord’s Prayer several thousand times in the course of a year, and if they were to keep on doing so for a thousand years they would not have tasted nor prayed one iota, one dot, of it!

In a word, the Lord’s Prayer is the greatest martyr on earth (as are the name and word of God). Everybody tortures and abuses it; few take comfort and joy in its proper use.

(Martin Luther)

Guy Davies – Dan Phillips Interview

 

The Exiled Preacher Guy Davies interviewed the Pyromaniac Dan Phillips.  The interesting, funny, thought provoking, and at times disturbing interview can be viewed here.

 

Quote:

GD: What is the biggest problem facing evangelicalism today and how should we respond?

DP: Here’s exactly what I think it is: failure truly to understand, believe, embrace, and live out a robust conviction of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. I see that as the common theme behind the various church-growth fads, the Emerg*** movement, crippling forms of mysticism and charismaticism, and pulpit ills in general. We don’t really believe Scripture is enough. It must be supplemented with techniques, programs, experiences, exercises, entertainment. The Reformation put the pulpit (for the preaching of the Word) at the center, and we’re working hard to move it aside and replace it with a thousand and one distractions. "Preach the word!" Paul cried to Timothy as he finished his own course. God grant us ears to hear, greater hearts to grasp, bolder lips to proclaim, and stiffer spines to stand on the Word alone.

Do Something

The Letter of James 1: 22-25

But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

C.H. Spurgeon, extract from Lectures to My Students

Brethren, do something; do something; do something: While committees waste their time over resolutions, do something. While Societies and Unions are making constitutions, le us win souls. Too often we discuss, and discuss, and discuss, and Satan laughs in his sleeve. It is time we had done planning and sought something to plan. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov’s idea of war is mine: “Forward and strike! No theory! Attack!  Form column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the centre of the enemy.” Our one aim is to save sinners, and this we are not to talk about but to do in the power of God.

Horatius Bonar, extract from Follow the Lamb

You were neither born nor reborn for yourselves alone. You may not be able to do much, but do something; work while it is day. You may not be able to give much, but give something; according to your ability, remembering that the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

Take heed, and beware of covetousness; for the love of money is the root of all evil. Whenever worldliness comes in, in any shape, whether it be love of money or love of pleasure, you cease to be faithful to Christ, and are trying to serve both God and mammon.

Do something, then, for God, while time lasts. It may not be long; for the day goes away, and the shadows of evening are stretched out. Do something every day. Work, and throw your heart into the work. Work joyfully and with a right good will, as men who love both their work and their master. Be not weary in well-doing. Work, and work in faith. Work in love, and patience, and hope.

Don’t shrink from hard labor or disagreeable duties, or a post trying to flesh and blood. ‘Endure hardness, as a good soldier in Jesus Christ’ (2 Tim 2:3). Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord (1 Cor 15:58). Don’t fold your hands, or lay aside your staff, or sheathe your sword. Don’t give way to slothfulness and flesh-pleasing, saying to yourselves, ‘I can get to heaven without working.’

Your gifts may be small, your time not much, your opportunities few; but work, and do it quietly, without bustle, or self-importance, not as pleasing men, but God; not seeking the honor that cometh from men, but that which cometh from God.

The day of honor is coming, and the Master’s ‘Well done’ will make up for all hardship and labor here. When the Son of man shall come in His glory, with all His holy angels, and when He shall sit upon the throne of His glory, it will be blessed to be set upon His right hand, and acknowledged as those who have fed Him, and clothed and visited Him in prison; and it would be a bitter thing, indeed, to be ’saved so as by fire,’ namely: barely saved, and no more; saved (if such a thing can be thought of) without doing anything for Him that saved us; having given Him no water when He was thirsty, no food when He was hungry, no clothes when He was naked, and when in prison having never once come nigh Him.

Of Faith and Prejudice

That faith which is weakened by discussion is mere prejudice, not true faith. They who receive the most important articles of their religion upon trust from human authority, are continually liable to be thrown into doubt; and the only method of obviating this evil is to dig deep and lay our foundation upon a rock. (Archibald Alexander)

More Darwin Made It Possible

“[Ernst] Haeckel was the chief apostle of evolution in Germany…. His evolutionary racism; his call to the German people for racial purity and unflinching devotion to a "just" state; his belief that harsh, inexorable laws of evolution ruled human civilization and nature alike, conferring upon favored races the right to dominate others; the irrational mysticism that had always stood in strange communion with his brave words about objective science – all contributed to the rise of Nazism.” (Stephen J. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 1977).

“Thus there results the subjection of a number of people under the will, often of only a few  persons, a subjection based simply upon the right of the stronger, a right which, as we see in Nature, can be regarded as the sole conceivable right, because it is founded on reason.”(Adolf Hitler)

“The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.” (Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics, 1947).