Introduction: "Let heads of those who hem me inBe overwhelmed by their own lies . . ." Psalm 140, Cantus Christi An adage is a phrase that contains ...
Book of the Month/October 2021
The first thing to note is that this is an abridged version—gleanings from William Gurnall’s massive work of the same name. This small version, published and sold by Community Christian Ministries, is an outstanding collection of some of Gurnall’s best passages. Gurnall was a Puritan, through and through. “Can Christ be in thou heart and …
The Prophecy of Micah [9]
Sermon Video Introduction: So we have now come to the conclusion of the second consolation section in the prophecy of Micah. As we continue to work through this passage, notice again that ...
Just Glorious
“These three rules seem to have in them the practical sum of the whole matter. I beg you to remember them and apply them with all the wisdom that God gives you. First. Have as few congregations as you can. Second. Know your congregation as thoroughly as you can. Third. Know your congregation so largely and deeply that in knowing it you shall know humanity.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 143
Impersonal Laws Do Nothing
“We are accustomed to think about the world in quasi-Deistic terms. Sure, God made everything some time long ago, but things happen now because of impersonal natural laws, right? Gravity pulls things to the floor, centrifugal force pulls them out to the edges, and the law of supply and demand determines the cost of zippers. But the biblical doctrine is actually one of creation and ongoing providence. All of it is personal.”
Ploductivity, p. 49
Name Against Name
“In Deuteronomy, the people of God were told to exterminate the Canaanites. This was a God-ordained ethnic cleansing. Particularly they were to go after the idolatrous worship, and note this—and ‘destroy the names of them out of that place’ (Dt. 12:3). But nature abhors a vacuum even here, and this was done so that the name of God might be established in the land (Dt. 12:5). God was going to select a place to put His name.”
Let the Stones Cry Out, p. 59
Biggest Challenge for Men Today? | Doug Wilson
Okay, Eight More
Organized Poverty
“Grinding poverty can certainly come about through natural disasters—famines and so on—but the thing we really need to be on guard against is organized and coercive poverty, by which I mean socialism.”
Ploductivity, p. 48
Open Carry in Worship
“So we worship in a fortress. But the metaphor should never run away with us. This does not mean we should walk around in here like we were an armed garrison—open carry in worship would make a liturgical statement, one that we don’t want to make. That statement would be that we consider all the others here to be potential enemies, not brothers and sisters. We are in the sanctuary, not in an Old West saloon. Concealed carry is different, and no more a problem that having a church building with a sprinkler system installed in case of fire. We would not be dubious about open carry at church because we were afraid of guns—far from it. The problem is liturgical, not practical. This is a secure fortress, and so we never want to install our anxieties into the liturgy. Here we are foreshadowing the time when we hang the trumpet in the hall, and study war no more (Is. 2:2-6).”
Let the Stones Cry Out, pp. 57-58