You are here in part to learn a holy impatience. By this I do not mean susceptibility to annoyance or irritability, but rather an impatience with every false thing that tricks itself out as something worthy of admiration. You may be assured that behind every such false claim is an idol, carved from some man’s …
Fourth Decade of Psalms/Psalm 31
Introduction: Periodically we spend ten weeks on a series of psalms, and we now come to Psalms 31-40. This psalm is notable in that Jesus quoted from it for His last words on the cross. He has been followed in this by many of His disciples, including Polycarp, Bernard, Huss, Luther, and Melancthon. The Text: …
Covenant Renewal
When we worship the Lord, we are renewing the covenant with Him. He knows our frailty, and how easily we flatter ourselves, and so He seeks to bring us up short – every week. But we might mistake this language. We might begin to assume that God expects us to be constantly and consistently defeated. …
All Belongs to You
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of all heaven, Lord over all the earth, we come to worship You now in the kind name of Jesus Christ our Lord. You are the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Not one hair can …
The Next Christendom
As we have said numerous times, we here at Christ Church do not have a political agenda. By this we mean that we do not intend to embrace the idea that the Christian faith is just another player in the marketplace of ideas, and that we need to agitate in various ways to make our …
Acquiring A Taste
Music is very important to our God, and He requires us to come before Him with congregational music. As we do, we want to take care not to insult Him with false assumptions about what He wants. Beware of a false humility: you may believe you do not have a good voice, and in some …
Chugging In the Meadow
What does it look like when the Presbyterian locomotive jumps the rails and finds itself chugging valiantly through a meadow? Let a recent statement from Evangel Presbytery (PCA) answer the question. HT: Jeff Meyers Evangel Presbytery declares that the doctrines of the “New Perspective on Paul,” “Auburn Avenue Theology/Federal Vision”, and teachings of Norman Shepherd, …
Worldview Wheel VI
Introduction: Now we come to put everything together as we talking about worldview living. Not surprisingly, the thing to remember is the grace of God—the axle. The Text: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the …
Last Post on Waters
Okay, one last comment, and I am done reviewing Waters’ book. In the bibliography, Waters says this about my lecture on heretics and the covenant at the 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference. “Wilson calls for a ‘covenantal approach to heresy,’ one that recognizes the ‘objective . . . covenantal obligations’ of the heretic, who, if …
Talmudic Layers of Revivalism
In the footnotes of Waters’ book, Cal Beisner makes this statement. “The Westminster Standards present the sacraments solely as means of sanctifying grace, not as means of converting grace” (p. 302). In his response to my essay on sacramental efficacy in the Westminster Standards, Rick Phillips makes a similar point. “In reading Wilson’s paper I …