As we come to God to worship Him, our constant prayer should be that He makes us unable to stand before His holy presence. When this happens, there is always a winnowing effect in the church. One of the names historians give to such winnowings is reformation. Men love religion when that religion enables them …
A Fourth Decade of Psalms/Psalm 33
Introduction: God is greatly to be praised. He is worthy of all honor and praise. Our ability to praise Him falls short of necessity, and yet we are still summoned to it. Unlike the failures of sin, there is a glorious failure in praising God. Who can even begin to do it justice? The Text: …
Complaints and Complaining
We cannot have a body of saints this size in this world without having that body contain a significant number of complaints. Every complaint has two components. The first is the objective aspect, the offense, or irritation, or annoyance. Sometimes this problem is not truly objective – it is possible to believe someone has sinned …
God of all Light
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of all gods, King of the heavens, we worship You now in the Spirit You have sent, and in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You have spoken Your Word into this dark world so that we would …
Jesus Is Lord. No, Really.
We are gathered here as the people of God, summoned to be citizens of new polis, a new city, a new kingdom. This kingdom is not intended to function as a sort of shadow government until the end of the world, constantly out of touch, constantly impotent. No, this kingdom was designed to grow and …
Blessed Meat and Wine
Gracious Father and God, we rejoice before You now, and look to You to continue to pour out Your grace and mercy upon us. We are glad that You have given us this food, and we thank You for the hands that prepared it all. We ask You to bless the meat and the wine, …
Say It Again
You know that God is the only Lord. You know that He is to be worshiped in accordance with His holy Word. You know that the gospel is the only life to be had in this wretched world. But remember also that this gospel proclaims a new creation, a new heaven and new earth. This …
Westminster One: Of the Holy Scripture
1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; (Rom. 2:14–15; 1:19–20; Ps. 19:1–3; Rom. 1:32; 2:1) yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary …
Introduction to Confessional and Systematic Theology:
Remember that a systematic understanding of any given text is really synonymous with a formal understanding of the text. Understanding of a work is impossible unless there is an ability to summarize it, and summary is nothing but a systematic distillation. The real enemy is systematic misunderstanding of the text (not to mention systematic misapplications). …
Try, Try Again
A couple years ago, I started posting a series of notes on the Westminster Confession. But I never finished posting them, I didn’t like the format I was using, and there I was, like the guy with the half-finished tower in the gospels. Not to mention the prospect of having to exposit that stuff about …