My Last Day

God searches the heart...

God searches the heart and understands every motive. To be acceptable to Him, our motives must spring from a love for Him and a desire to glorify Him. Obedience to God performed from a legalistic motive – that is a fear of the consequences or to gain favor with God – is not pleasing to God.

Jerry Bridges

No better gospel...

Other men may preach the gospel better than I, but no man can preach a better gospel.

George Whitfield

Goodness vs. the Cross

Think

Prayer

Indwelling Sin

Darkness, Fire, and Chains

O Great God: by Sovereign Grace Music from Lumbrera on Vimeo.

Christ, The True Vine I Paul Washer I John 15 from Radford Fellowship on Vimeo.

Abbott and Costello Meet The Church

                                  

God-Centered or Child-Centered?

You will see many in this day who allow their children to choose and think for themselves long before they are able, and even make excuses for their disobedience, as if it were a thing not to be blamed. To my eyes, a parent always yielding, and a child always having its own way, are a most painful sight – painful, because I see God’s appointed order of things inverted and turned upside down – painful, because I feel sure the consequence to that child’s character in the end will be self-will, pride, and self-conceit. You must not wonder that men refuse to obey their Father which is in heaven, if you allow them, when children, to disobey their father who is upon earth.

J.C. Ryle

A good husband...

A good husband will either make a good wife, or easily and profitably endure a bad one.

Richard Baxter

Are you reflecting Christ in your marriage?

To be like Jesus Christ in relationship to your wife is an enormous order to fill.  You are to be the head of your home, including your wife, just as Christ is the head of the church.  When you fail, you not only fail your wife, you also fail to represent your Lord’s love for His church.  That is why your task is such a solemn one.  When you fail to reflect Him in your marriage, you damage His name.  You are called to show forth Jesus Christ by the leadership that you exercise in your home.

Jay E. Adams

Where a man belongs...

A famous cigarette billboard pictures a curly-headed, bronze-faced, muscular macho with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth.  The sign says, "Where a man belongs."  That is a lie.  Where a man belongs is at the bedside of his children, leading in devotion and prayer.  Where a man belongs is leading his family to the house of God.  Where a man belongs is up early and alone with God seeking vision and direction for the family.

John Piper

A prayer that changed history...

"Oh Lord, purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with the love of thee, animate my sluggish nature and fix my inconstancy, and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing," - William Wilberforce

How Precious is Your Steadfast Love

A meditation on...


PSALM 36 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. 2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. 3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good. 4 He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil.

Notice what characterizes the wicked and what direction we have to stay clear from their path.

• Transgression speaks deep in their heart
• They do not fear God - that is they could care less of offending him
• They flatter themselves
• Their words are full of trouble and deception
• They live outside of biblical wisdom and morality
• They ponder how to sin and act on it
• They do not reject evil

"O God may you grant me grace to flee their vices. Let not sin control my hearts affections and the thoughts of my mind. Even as I type this I am tempted to run from the fear of you. May your grace cause me to reject evil."

⁵ Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the clouds.
⁶  Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
     your judgments are like the great deep;
    man and beast you save, O Lord.

How do you see the steadfast love and faithfulness of God, O my soul? What do you think of? How do you feel about it? "...to the heavens...to the clouds"; that is it can not be measured. You can not plumb its depths. You can not see its limits. There is enough for me. This sinner! God has enough love and faithfulness in Jesus Christ to cove all of my screw ups! I can run to him in all my sin and weakness.

His righteousness, like a mighty mountain, is immovable. His judgments are beyond my ability to figure out. They are deeper than the ocean. He saves both man and beast.

⁷  How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
    The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house,
    and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
     in your light do we see light.

His love. His love is steadfast; constant, unwavering, unfaltering, resolute, persistent, committed, dedicated.

His love. His love is precious; valuable, priceless, a great treasure. Is his love precious to you, O my soul? Is your hearts cry - "God's love is worth more to me than anything else!"? Here is the root of all my problems; even my sins - it is not. I am ashamed. 

"How wicked am I O Lord to not have you as my soul affection. My heart is often divided between this and that. Yet I cry to you O my God; Make your steadfast love precious to me!! Make me to value your love so that I to may joyfully take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Make me to feast with delight in the abundance of your grace in Jesus Christ!"

Do you cry out to God for delight dear reader? Why all this dependence? Why not just 'choose' to delight in God? What does David say here my friend? Read carefully...

They feast on the abundance of your house,
    and you give them drink from the river of your delights

Where does this delight come from? "and you give them drink from the river of your delights". Are you totally dependent on God to give you delightful thirsts in himself that you may drink of his delights? How else are we to feast on the abundance of his house? 

"God may it be so for me and mine. May you give me light to see the light of Jesus Christ. May you continue in your mercy to this sinner to well up in me living waters that spring forth from the fountain of life pouring forth from your Holy Spirit."

By This We Know Love

Confession and Petition

Holy Lord, we have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find Your mind in Your Word, of neglect to seek You in our daily life. Our transgressions and short-comings present us with a list of accusations, but we bless You that they will not stand against us, for all have been laid on Christ. Go on to subdue our corruptions, and grant us grace to live above them. Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring our spirit into subjection, but may You rule over me in liberty and power.
 
We thank You that many of our prayers have been refused. We have asked amiss and do not have, we have prayed from lusts and been rejected, we have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Your patient work, answering 'no' to our wrongful prayers, and fitting us to accept it. Purge us from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to Your good rule. We thank You for Your wisdom and Your love, for all the acts of discipline to which we are subject, for sometimes putting us into the furnace to refine our gold and remove our dross.
 
Father, no trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If You were to give us a choice to live in pleasure and keep our sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give us sanctified affliction. Deliver us from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of Your grace in us, everything that prevents us taking delight in You. Then we shall bless You, God of jeshurun, for helping us to be upright.

Based on The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett

Spiritual Helps

Eternal Father, it is amazing love, that You have sent Your Son to suffer in our place, that You have given us the Holy Spirit to teach us, to comfort us, and to guide us, and that You have allowed the ministry of angels to wall us around; because of the life, death and resurrection of Your Son, all heaven is available to help the well-being of poor worms like us. Permit Your unseen servants to be ever active on our behalf, and to rejoice when grace increases in us. Don’t let them rest until our conflicts are over, and we stand victorious on salvation's shore. 

Lord, grant that our proneness to evil, deadness to good, and resistance to Your Spirit's work, may never provoke You to abandon us. May our hard hearts awake Your pity, not Your wrath. And if the enemy gets an advantage through our sin, let it be seen that heaven is mightier than hell, that those for me are greater than those against me. Arise to our help in richness of covenant blessings, keep us feeding in the pastures of Your strengthening Word, searching Scripture to find You there. 

Father, if our waywardness is visited with Your discipline, enable us to receive correction meekly, to bless the reproving hand, to discern the motive of rebuke, to respond promptly, and do the first work. Let all Your fatherly dealings make us a partaker of Your holiness. Grant that in every fall we may sink lower on our knees, and that when we rise it may be to greater heights of devotion. May our every cross be sanctified, every loss be gain, every denial a spiritual advantage, every dark day a light of the Holy Spirit, every night of trial a song. 

Based on The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett

The Intermediate State, Heaven and Hell

Resurrection

The End? Q&A 2

The Great Tribulation

Israel and the End Times

The Kingdom of God

Who might the '24 Elders' be?

Upload MP3 and download MP3 using free MP3 hosting from Tindeck.

I posted this mp3 from D A Carson in response to a very good article from Worldview Weekend by Dr. Tommy Ice (http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=8269). In my opinion D A Carson does a very good job exegeting Revelation and his interpretation is well worth listening to even if you happen to disagree. You can find the rest of this series here http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/scripture-index/a/revelation

The Law, the Prophets, and the Last Days

Interpreting Prophecy

Last Days Madness

The End? Q&A 1

Historic Premillenialism

Postmillennialism

Amillennialism

The End? Finding Hope in the Millennial Maze

A Catechism on the Heart

by Sinclair Ferguson

Sometimes people ask authors, “Which of your books is your favorite?” The first time the question is asked, the response is likely to be “I am not sure; I have never really thought about it.” But forced to think about it, my own standard response has become, “I am not sure what my favorite book is; but my favorite title is A Heart for God.” I am rarely asked, “Why?” but (in case you ask) the title simply expresses what I want to be: a Christian with a heart for God.

Perhaps that is in part a reflection of the fact that we sit on the shoulders of the giants of the past. Think of John Calvin’s seal and motto: a heart held out in the palm of a hand and the words “I offer my heart to you, Lord, readily and sincerely.” Or consider Charles Wesley’s hymn: 

O for a heart to praise my God!
A heart from sin set free.

Some hymnbooks don’t include Wesley’s hymn, presumably in part because it is read as an expression of his doctrine of perfect love and entire sanctification. (He thought it possible to have his longing fulfilled in this world.) But the sentiment itself is surely biblical.

But behind the giants of church history stands the testimony of Scripture. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart (Deut. 6:5). That is why, in replacing Saul as king, God “sought out a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), for “the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7). It is a truism to say that, in terms of our response to the gospel, the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. But truism or not, it is true.

What this looks like, how it is developed, in what ways it can be threatened, and how it expresses itself will be explored little by little in this new column. But at this stage, perhaps it will help us if we map out some preliminary matters in the form of a catechism on the heart:

Q.1. What is the heart?
A. The heart is the central core and drive of my life intellectually (it involves my mind), affectionately (it shapes my soul), and totally (it provides the energy for my living).

Q.2. Is my heart healthy?
A. No. By nature I have a diseased heart. From birth, my heart is deformed and antagonistic to God. The intentions of its thoughts are evil continually.

Q.3. Can my diseased heart be healed?
A. Yes. God, in His grace, can give me a new heart to love Him and to desire to serve Him.

Q.4. How does God do this?
A. God does this through the work of the Lord Jesus for me and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in me. He illumines my mind through the truth of the gospel, frees my enslaved will from its bondage to sin, cleanses my affections by His grace, and motivates me inwardly to live for Him by rewriting His law into my heart so that I begin to love what He loves. The Bible calls this being “born from above.”

Q.5. Does this mean I will never sin again?
A. No. I will continue to struggle with sin until I am glorified. God has given me a new heart, but for the moment He wants me to keep living in a fallen world. So day by day I face the pressures to sin that come from the world, the flesh, and the Devil. But God’s Word promises that over all these enemies I can be “more than a conqueror through him who loved us.”

Q.6. What four things does God counsel me to do so that my heart may be kept for Him?
A. First, I must guard my heart as if everything depended on it. This means that I should keep my heart like a sanctuary for the presence of the Lord Jesus and allow nothing and no one else to enter.

Second, I must keep my heart healthy by proper diet, growing strong on a regular diet of God’s Word — reading it for myself, meditating on its truth, but especially being fed on it in the preaching of the Word. I also will remember that my heart has eyes as well as ears. The Spirit shows me baptism as a sign that I bear God’s triune name, while the Lord’s Supper stimulates heart love for the Lord Jesus.

Third, I must take regular spiritual exercise, since my heart will be strengthened by worship when my whole being is given over to God in expressions of love for and trust in Him.

Fourth, I must give myself to prayer in which my heart holds on to the promises of God, rests in His will, and asks for His sustaining grace — and do this not only on my own but with others so that we may encourage one another to maintain a heart for God.

This — and much else — requires development, elaboration, and exposition. But it can be summed up in a single biblical sentence. Listen to your Father’s appeal: “My son, give Me your heart.”

Israel Rejects the Gospel

Chosen By God

Theology Night with Sinclair Ferguson & R.C. Sproul

Desiring God Read-Along: Week 5

Desiring God Read-Along: Week 4

Desiring God Read-Along: Week 3

Desiring God Read-Along: Week 2

Desiring God Read-Along: Week 1

Learning To Love Correction

Learning To Love Correction from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Growing in Self-Control

Growing in Self-Control from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

The Righteousness of Christ

The Righteousness of Christ from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

When Someone Doubts

When Someone Doubts from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Eschatology

Eschatology from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Sanctity of life of those with disabilities

The Sanctity of Life for Those With Disabilities from Bethlehem Baptist Church on Vimeo.