Faith is the alone instrument that God uses to bring justification to the individual believer. This faith that He uses is the real thing, living faith, faith that looks to Christ alone (apart from any defective works that person might have). But a very common form of “defective works” would have to include defective theories …
That We Might Be One in You
Our Father in heaven, You have given us the rest we enjoy from our physical labors, and You have given us the rest of our salvation. We ask that we would be marked as people of grace, rest, delight, and kindness. As we look forward to worship tomorrow, we ask that You would bless this …
Persevering Grace
It cannot be the case that all who are covenantally “in Christ” by virtue of baptism are in exactly the same position as regards the grace and favor of God—with no distinction save that some persevere. To think that having “all grace” except for persevering grace is somehow reassuring is to have a wildly skewed …
Joy and Strength/Psalm 21
As with many of the psalms, David intends himself in the description, but under the inspiration of the Spirit, the language transcends David’s situation, and finds its fullest fulfillment in the triumph and victory of the Lord Jesus. “The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he …
Come One, Come All
As we approach this Table, we have to be careful. One the one hand, we are encouraged to come gladly, putting away all false scruples and morbid introspection. On the other hand, we know that coming to this Table is inconsistent with stark unrepented sin. How can we teach against one error without encouraging the …
What Is A Christian?
One of the stories circulating out there is that the federal vision folks have changed the definitions of words, words like Christian or justification. This is said because it is simply assumed (not demonstrated) that any expansion of a word’s uses must necessarily include an abandonment of previous uses. I was brought up in an …
Where is the Pulpit?
One of the common mistakes in creating hypothetical scenarios to test where someone “comes down” in the federal vision controversy is the mistake of saying, “How do you preach to the baptized? Do you preach as though they are unconverted, needing constantly to question? Or that they are converted, in need of encouragement?” The question …
The First Sabbath Keeper
Gracious Father, You are the first Sabbath keeper, and we rejoice that You set the pattern in this for us. We know that many of us in our sinfulness have twisted the day of celebration and rest into some kind of dour observance, or, at the opposite extreme, into just another day off. Father, we …
The Lord is our Light/Psalm 27
INTRODUCTION If God is for us, then who can be against us? This is the fundamental faith of all who have suffered persecution for the cause of Christ. We see it throughout history, and we discover it in both testaments. One man and God outnumber everybody. THE TEXT The LORD is my light and my …
Gratitude and Childbirth
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 19 In our last installment, we noted that the last one hundred years has brought to us some astonishing blessings in the realm of health. We live much longer on average-an average of about thirty years longer. In response, it …