Judges: The Canaanization of Israel

Surgical words from our teacher Dan Block, via our brother Jason Hood, identifying parallels between the Canaanization of Israel in Judges and the paganization of the church today.

'. . . our eagerness to fight the Lord's battles with the world's resources and strategies . . .'

I am rebuked and strengthened.

HT: TGC

The Landscape of Piety

Packer summing up what got the Puritans out of bed in the morning. Magnificent.

For the Puritans, the landscape of piety--that is, the spiritual topography of the ongoing life-situations in which each saint serves God--was determined by four realities, on all of which, as their books show, they laid out a great deal of expository effort.

These were the sovereignty and sanctity of God, under whose eye we live, in whose hands we are, and whose purpose to have us holy, as he is holy, explains his way with our lives; the dignity and depravity of human beings, made for God but ruined by sin and now needing total renewal by grace; the love and Lordship of Christ, the Mediator, the Christian's Saviour-King; and the light and power of the Holy Spirit, who convicts, quickens, regenerates, witnesses, leads, and sanctifies.

--J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Crossway, 2010; repr.), 332

J. I. Packer never wastes a word.

Gospel-Fueled Revival

Enjoying the most recent sermon from Covenant Life in Gaithersburg.

Thanks Pop.

Sit Down and Eat

'Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?' -Genesis 3:11

Elyse Fitzpatrick:

We are all the same. We have plucked fruit from that forbidden tree. We have proudly declared that we know best, that we can take care of ourselves. We have crowned ourselves deities. 'Have you eaten from the tree?' Oh, yes and yes, over and over again in ways both glaring and hidden.

But the God-Man has been slain. The Lamb's blood has been spilt, and it covers us. Our rags have been replaced with his robes. The garden has been reopened; we've been invited back in. 'Here, eat of this, it will give you life.'

. . . Have you eaten from that tree today? Have you satiated your soul with the luscious fruit that grows from this blood-soaked ground? Have you nourished your heart with his strength, his righteousness, his perfection, and the gospel? Have you shunned self-righteousness, self-reliance, self-improvement? Which tree are you most aware of?

Eat from the blessed tree, friend. Eat and eat and never stop. When you are hungry for something else, something more, something new, run to that tree. Stay there; rest in his shade. The door is open; the meal is ready. Sit down and eat.

--Elyse Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time (Crossway, 2009), 137-38

This is Preaching

Lloyd-Jones, preaching on John 14:1--

I would remind you again that the Bible claims that it and it alone can really show us this quiet heart. I do not apologize for that. I state and assert it.

We cannot mix this the gospel of Jesus Christ with anything else; it is either this or nothing. . . .

Let us, then, consider together the Bible's method of giving us a quiet heart. This, the Bible tells us, is an actual and practical possibility for us in this world of time. . . .

That is what I have to offer. It is my privilege to tell you that it is possible for you, whatever your position, whatever your circumstance and condition and problem, to be delivered from trouble and distress and pain of mind and of heart to know the peace of God 'which passeth all understanding' (Phil 4:7). I want to put this before you as an actuality and as a possibility here and now.

--Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (Crossway, 2009), 46-47

It's that last paragraph especially that strikes me. This is preaching, is it not?

Crossway Bible Catalog, Summer/Fall 2011

Now viewable online. I'm especially excited about the Student Study Bible (scroll down here for a sample of Mark) and the Grow! Bible for 8-12 year olds, both coming out later this year.

Other Crossway catalogs viewable here.

HT: Rochelle Manock

Lessons from Churchill

Wonderful reflections on what we can learn from Churchill from my brother (in both sense of the word) Gavin, who recently read Paul's Johnson's biography of the former British Prime Minister.

(And who wouldn't want to read a book about which it is said: 'Johnson writes with the confidence and directness of an established writer who is no longer trying to prove himself, and as a result the book moves at an enjoyable pace and doesn’t get bogged down with non-essential distractions or academic pretensions.')

But Whatever Gain I Had

Justification, a Daily Experience

Puritan pastor William Fenner:

We must use the assurance of faith in applying the blood of Christ; we must labour to purge and cleanse our consciences with it.

If we find that we have sinned, we must run at once to the blood of Christ to wash away our sin. We must not let the wound fester or exulcerate, but immediately get it healed. . . . As we sin daily, so he justifies daily, and we must daily go to him for it. . . . We must every day eye the brazen serpent. Justification is an ever-running fountain, and therefore we cannot look to have all the water at once. . . .

O let us sue out every day a daily pardon. . . . Let us not sleep one night without a new pardon. Better to sleep in a house full of adders and venomous beasts than sleep in one sin.

--William Fenner, A Treatise of Conscience, in Works, 108f.; quoted in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Crossway, 2010; repr.), 115

No Mind Can Fully Comprehend

Of all God's benefits given in the covenant of grace, first place belongs to justification, to forgiveness of sins. All joy and peace, all certainty of communion with God, rests on this forgiveness, a benefit no mind can fully comprehend or believe.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:176