Reformed Rap

More theology in this 4.5 minute video than is preached in an hour form the pulpits of many churches today.

Phil Johnson on Heresies

Heard any new heresies lately? I doubt it.

Quote:

“It’s important for Christians to have a grasp of heresies that the church has battled over the centuries, because they often return with new clothing, and the unprepared Christian is likely to fall into these old pits. Phil does an excellent job of looking at some of the major heresies that are revisiting the church today: Socinianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, and Judaizing. This is an excellent 6 part series that will shore up some weak points in the church today.”

The series is available at the GraceLife Pulpit web site or you can download each MP3 individually below.

1. The Judaizers
2. The Gnostics
3. The Arians, #1
4. The Arians, #2
5. The Pelagians
6. The Socinians

Albert Mohler on the Apostle’s Creed

Dr. Albert Mohler’s 13 part sermon series on the Apostle’s Creed has been around for a couple of years. Nothing new here… but don’t move along too fast. Just as with the creed itself, this series is definitely worthy of thoughtful contemplation, of spending time with, and of being listened to again and again.

The series is available with other Chapel messages delivered by Dr. Mohler here or you can download each MP3 individually below.

 

1. The Apostles Creed: Credo: I Believe
2. The Apostles Creed: God the Father Almighty
3. The Apostles Creed: Maker of Heaven and Earth
4. The Apostles Creed: Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord
5. The Apostles Creed: Conceived of the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary
6. The Apostles Creed: Suffered Under Pontius Pilot
7. The Apostles Creed: Was Crucified, Died, and Was Buried
8. The Apostles Creed: He Ascended into Heaven and Sitteth on the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty
9. The Apostles Creed: Whence He Shall Come to Judge the Living and the Dead
10. The Apostles Creed: The Holy Spirit
11. The Apostles Creed: The Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of the Saints
12. The Apostles Creed: The Forgiveness of Sins
13. The Apostles Creed: The Resurrection of the Body and Life Everlasting

S. Lewis Johnson on Prayer

In this 8 part series provided by the SLJ Institute, Dr. S. Lewis Johnson teaches on the theology of prayer in a way that is sadly, and unfortunately, lacking in many (so-called) churches today. Highly recommended for all Christians no matter their stage of spiritual maturity. Each lesson is available here or you can download each MP3 individually below.

1. The Theology of Prayer: the Nature, Object and Grounds of Prayer
2. Prayer and the Attributes, part I (Why Bother and Infinite, Omnipotent God of Love?)
3. Prayer and the Attributes, part II (Does Prayer Change an Unchanging God?)
4. Prayer and the Decrees
5. The Problem of Unanswered Prayer, part I
6. The Problem of Unanswered Prayer, part II
7. The Necessity of Prayer
8. Importunate Prayer

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.

John Piper Reciting Romans 8

 

Link: If My Words Abide in You by John Piper.

Daniel Akin: Survey of The New Testament

Daniel L. Akin, president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of Five Who Changed the World, is conducting a Survey of the New Testament. You can Subscribe to the Podcast to listen to the audio and download the notes and outlines here.

Already up:

1. Survey of the New Testament: How the Bible Came to Be
2. Survey of the New Testament: Why the 4 Gospels
3. Survey of the New Testament: Matthew
4. Survey of the New Testament: Mark
5. Survey of the New Testament: Luke
6. Survey of the New Testament: Acts
7. Survey of the New Testament: John
8. Survey of the New Testament: Romans
9. Survey of the New Testament: 1 Corinthians
10. Survey of the New Testament: 2 Corinthians

The Year Of Living Dangerously

 

Via Truth Crossing

Download complete message: The Year of Living Dangerously by Albert Mohler.

The Complaints of the Worm of Conscience

While I do not think that someone who is soundly saved will backslide, the ‘advice’ from Ebenezer Erskine in this sermon seems a particularly useful measure of the faithfulness of our own Christian walk as well as providing for sound strategies in the avoidance of the pitfalls of temptation.

1. Take care that the foundation be well laid, upon the everlasting Rock Jesus Christ; for this is the foundation that God hath laid in Zion, and another foundation can no man lay. You must be cemented to this foundation by the Spirit and faith, otherwise you can never stand in a day of trial; for your root being rottenness, your "blossom shall go up as the dust." The house built upon the sand fell, when the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon it; but the house founded upon this rock shall stand out against the utmost efforts of the gates of hell.

2. Maintain an everlasting suspicion over your own hearts; for "he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool," considering that it is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Particularly take heed of the workings and sproutings of the bitter root of unbelief, which causes to depart from the living God, Heb. 3:12.

3. Keep your eyes upon the promises of persevering grace, particularly that, Jer. 32:40: "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me." If you plead and improve this promise by faith, it is impossible you can draw back; for it is "impossible for God to lie." God stands on both sides of the covenant, to fulfil both his and our part of the same; and therefore plead, that he may fulfil his in you, that he would keep you by his "power, through faith unto salvation."

4. Keep a steady eye on Christ, the blessed Mediator of the covenant." Eye him as the store-house and fountain of all your supplies of grace and strength; for it is "out of his fulness that we receive, and grace for grace." Eye him as your Captain, to fight all your battles against sin and Satan; for he has "spoiled principalities and powers;" and if ever we overcome, it must be in the blood and strength of the Lamb. Eye him as your guide, to lead you through all the dark and difficult steps of your pilgrimage; for "he leads the blind in a way that they have not known." Eye him as your pattern; endeavour to imitate him in all his imitable perfections; run your Christian race, "looking unto Jesus." Remember how steady and firm he was in carrying on the great work of redemption; he set his face like a flint against all the storms and obstacles that lay in his way; "he did not faint, nor was he discouraged," but "travelled on in the greatness of his strength, enduring the cross, and despising the shame;" for he said on the cross, "It is finished." So study ye, after his example, to run your Christian race, your course of obedience, and press oil against all temptations and difficulties, till ye "have finished your course with joy," and arrive at "the mark and prize of the high calling of God in Christ."

5. Beware of the first beginnings of defection and backsliding; for one trip makes way for another. Defections, are like the rolling of a stone upon the brow of a high mountain; if once it begin to roll, it is likely never to rest till it be at the bottom. You have been upon the mount of God, sirs; and if you begin once to roll down the hill of your high professions and resolutions, it is a hundred to one if you do not land in the depths of apostacy, and at last in the depths of hell.

6. Lastly, Study to be well skilled in unmasking the mystery of iniquity, and in detecting the wiles and stratagems of the tempter, and to provide yourselves with suitable antidotes against every attack of the enemy. For instance, if he tell thee sin is pleasant, ask him, if the complaints of the worm of conscience be pleasant too? and if "one day in God’s house" be not "better than a thousand in the tents of sin?" If he tell thee, that nobody sees, ask him if he can shut the eye of an omniscient God, whose "eyes are as a flame of fire," and who "setteth our most secret sins in the light of his countenance?" If he tell thee, that it is but a little one, ask him, If there be a little God? Or if His displeasure be a little thing? If he tell thee, that sin is profitable, ask him, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" By considerations of this nature, the mind comes to be fortified against the attacks and onsets of that grand enemy of salvation, and prove a notable ballast to keep the soul firm and steady against the most violent storms and tempests that may blow either from earth or hell.

***

Acknowledgement: A number of months ago I was introduced to the writings of Ralph Erskine through a friend who referred me to this post on Mike Ratliff’s blog. Through reading Ralph Erskine I discovered his brother Ebenezer. I guess there is something to that whole six degrees of separation thing after all.

Confident Evangelism

We are supposed to proclaim the Gospel in all the world. It is not an option but a command. Sharing the faith is not just the job of ordained ministers but an obligation of every Christian. In this two part audio series Don Green explains why every Christian has the freedom and competence to share the Gospel confidently with the lost.

Confident Evangelism, Part 1

Confident Evangelism, Part 2