We think we know what we have often heard. We tend to think we have progressed past what has frequently been said within our hearing. And yet, this is how the cancer of self-deception works. James tells us that those who hear without doing are self-deceived. And the more they hear, the more they think …
Common Era, Humbug!
N.B. This is an old exhortation. It is not really Advent yet. Nor is it 2002. But I stand by everything else. This is the second Sunday of the Advent season. As Christians, we seek to live our lives before God moment by moment and day by day. Unfortunately, we tend to taper off after …
What Pagans Always Do
Christians have been living in exile for far too many years. This exile is the exile of an arbitrary dualism, one that separates our private faith and the public faith. This is the heresy of modernity, and the political expression of that heresy is the ideal of liberal democracy. According to this heresy, what you …
Deep Comfort
When we gather together like this, under such circumstances, it is easy to fall into one of two errors, both of them serious sins. The first is the sin of complacency. We have heard about grace so much, and paid so little attention to what was actually being said about it, that we take the …
Grievances In Perspective
Disagreements are healthy only because they give us opportunity to obey the Scriptures as we strive together for like-mindedness. But some have taken the fact that disagreement is healthy in this limited sense, and twisted it into disobedience. They believe that we are supposed to strive for disagreements, because they are healthy. But the Scriptures …
Why You Must Come
Let all the nations be glad. The Lord is God, and He is extending His reign to the uttermost parts of the earth. Since He is doing this, just as He promised, we cannot by our sins and compromises keep it from happening. But our sins and compromises can keep us from exulting in the …
No Doctrinal Grape Nuts
As many of you noted, the front page newspaper article last weekend made clear that some local unbelievers are very unhappy about the influence that our church is having in the community. We are grateful that we are having enough influence to be noticed, and we are equally grateful that our opponents have been judicially …
What His Work Tastes Like
You are the people of God, and this means that you have been saved, you are being saved, and you will be saved. The Scriptures teach us to believe that we have been saved definitively, and yet not to rest in some carnal fashion upon our laurels. We are also warned against that constant temptation …
A Remote Control With New Batteries
The Word of God tells us in countless places that we are to live with a view toward everlasting consequences. God tells us that our motivation in this should be hunger for blessing from Him. The moralistic philosopher Kant tried to teach us that a deed is not really moral unless it is done from …
But He Invited Both of You
We have been called to liberty, but this liberty is no occasion for the flesh. We are granted full forgiveness, but this is not granted so that we might begin sinning with impunity. How can we who died to sin still live in it? The works of the flesh are plain, Paul tells us. But …