A.W. Pink: True Christian Love

Love is the Queen of the Christian graces. It is a holy disposition given to us when we are born again by God. It is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. True spiritual love is characterized by meekness and gentleness, yet it is vastly superior to the courtesies and kindnesses of the flesh.

We must be careful not to confuse human sentimentality, carnal pleasantries, human amiability and affability with true spiritual love. The love God commands, first to Himself and then to others, is not human love. It is not the indulgent, self-seeking love which is in us by nature. If we indulgently allow our children to grow up with little or, no Scriptural discipline, Proverbs plainly says we do not love them, regardless of the human sentimentality and affection we may feel for them. Love is not a sentimental pampering of one another with a loose indifference as to our walk and obedience before the Lord. Glossing over one another’s faults to ingratiate ourselves in their esteem is not spiritual love.

The true nature of Christian love is a righteous principle which seeks the highest good of others. It is a powerful desire to promote their welfare. The exercise of love is to be in strict conformity to the revealed will of God. We must love in the truth. Love among the brethren is far more than an agreeable society where views are the same. It is loving them for what we see of Christ in them, loving them for Christ’s sake.

The Lord Jesus Himself is our example. He was not only thoughtful, gentle, self-sacrificing and patient, but He also corrected His mother, used a whip in the Temple, Severely scolded His doubting disciples, and denounced hypocrites. True spiritual love is above all faithful to God and uncompromising towards all that is evil. We cannot declare, ‘Peace and Safety’ when in reality there is spiritual decay and ruin!

True spiritual love is very difficult to exercise because it is not our natural love. By nature we would rather love sentimentally and engender good feelings. Also many times true spiritual love is not received in love, but is hated as the Pharisees hated it. We must pray that God will fill us with His love and enable us to exercise it without dissimulation toward all.

Let Marriage Be Held in Honor Among All

Congratulations Brian and Roxane!  May God bless your lives together, and may your service to Him as husband and wife be a blessing to all.

Charles Spurgeon: The Old Cellar

When the ‘light’ of God’s grace comes into a person’s heart, it is something like the opening of the windows of an old cellar that has been shut up for many days. Down in that cellar, which has not been opened for many months, are all kinds of loathsome creatures, and a few sickly plants blanched by the darkness. The walls are dark and damp with the trail of reptiles; it is a horrid filthy place, in which no one would willingly enter.

You may walk there in the ‘dark’ very securely, and except now and then for the touch of some slimy creature, you would not believe the place was so bad and filthy. But once open those shutters, clean a pane of glass, let a little light in, and now see how a thousand noxious things have made this place their habitation. Surely, it was not the ‘light’ that made this place so horrible, but it was the light that showed how horrible it really was! So let God’s grace just open a window and let the light into a man’s soul, and he will stand astonished to see how sinful he really is.

 

George Swinnock: A fair Show In The Flesh?

 

There are several things which may help to make the life fair in the eyes of men; but nothing will make it amiable in the eyes of God, unless the heart be changed and renewed. Indeed, all the medicines that can be applied, though they may cover sin, they can never cure the corruptions and diseases of the soul.

Some insects lie in a deep sleep all the winter. They stir not, make no noise, and one would think them dead. But when the weather alters, and the sun shines, they revive and show themselves. So though lusts may seem dead in an unregenerate man, they are only laid asleep, and when opportunity comes, they will reveal themselves. Shame may hide sin, but it will not heal sin. Corruption often lies secret in the heart, when shame hinders it from breaking out in scabs and blotches in the life.

Fear may do somewhat to curb a corrupt nature, but it cannot cure it. The bear dares hardly touch his desired honey for fear of the stinging of the bees. The dog refrains from the food on the table, not because he does not like it, but because he is afraid of the cudgel. Many leave some sin in their outward actions, for fear they should starve if they kept it; yet are still fond of their sin. This inward love of sin is indeed its life, and that which is most dangerous and deadly to the soul.

Sin reigning in the heart, is oftentimes more hurtful than when it rages in the life. Such civil people go to hell without much disturbance, being asleep in sin. They are so far from being awaked that they are many times praised and commended. Example, custom, and education, may also help a man to make a fair show in the flesh. They may prune and lop sin, but never rip it up by the roots. All that these can do, is to make a man like a grave, green and flourishing on the surface and outside, when within there is nothing but rottenness and corruption.

If the chief fault were not in the vital parts, then outward applications might be effectual. When the fault is in the foundation of a house, it cannot be mended by plastering or painting.

William S. Plumer: Splendid Sins!

Two things are required to make an action right. One is that it be lawful in itself. The other is that it be done with a right motive. If the thing done is itself wrong, no motives can make it right. On the other hand, the thing done may be right in itself, but the motive which governs us may be wrong, and so the act may be sinful because the motive is sinful.

Bad motives in good actions are like dead flies in sweet ointments. They corrupt the whole. The motive of the heart is everything! Their very best works are but splendid sins! They do some things which God requires, and abstain from some things which God forbids-not because they love God or His law, but because it promotes their health, or wealth, or honor to do so.

Most unbelievers do many things which are very proper, but not out of love to God. The unregenerate man never does anything with holy motives. His life is better than his heart. Indeed his heart is the worst part of him! It is all wrong. It is hard, and proud, and selfish, and unbelieving, and without any love to God. So far from pleasing God, all the unregenerate are continually offending him.

Ploughing is itself a lawful act. If there is no ploughing, there can be no bread. Yet God says: “The ploughing of the wicked is sin!” Yes, he puts it down with other sins which greatly offend him. The whole verse reads thus: “A high look, and a proud heart, and the ploughing of the wicked–is sin.” Proverbs 21:4. If God had intended to teach that everything done by wicked men–even the most common and necessary thing was sinful–could He have chosen more fit words?

Here is a passage which shows that all the religious services of the unconverted, are defiled with sin. “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.” Proverbs 15:8.

Does God Have a “Will of Direction”?

Have you ever come to a fork in the road regarding a nonmoral issue and wondered what way God wants you to go? You’re not sure which job to take, which person to marry, where you should live, etc. etc., and you get so fretful about making the wrong decision that you end up not making any decision at all?

That is what Kevin DeYoung’s relatively new book Just Do Something deals with in a refreshing way. It’s subtitled, How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, Etc. (kind of tells you where the book is going, doesn’t it?)

Christians are familiar with God’s will of decree, or His secret will, that which only He knows about those things that will come to pass. Christians are familiar with God’s preceptive will, or His will as declared in His commandments, those things which He expects us to do. However, many Christians have operated as if God has a “will of direction”. What do I mean? Kevin DeYoung explains that God doesn’t have some hidden will about nonmoral issues that He expects us to discover. He states, “The conventional approach to the will of God–where God’s will is like a corn maze with only one way out and lots of dead ends, or like a bull’s-eye with the center of God’s will in the middle and second best everywhere else, or like a Magic 8-Ball that we are supposed to shake around until some generic answer floats to the top–is not helpful.” (pg. 43) And he’s right. Thinking of God’s will about nonmoral issues this way can be almost crippling. What’s the solution? Utilizing the tools God has given with some biblical wisdom. Namely, Bible reading, (what do the Scriptures say?), godly counsel, (what do wise and seasoned Christians say?), and prayer, ( ask God for illumination and wisdom).

If we seek to do that which is pleasing to God with uprightness of heart, when it comes to forks in the road, He is going to bless us whether we go left or right.

We can certainly rejoice in that!

John Owen: How Deeply Involved I Have Been With Sin

Let our hearts admit, “I am poor and weak. Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful; he watches constantly for advantages over my soul. The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretences. My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me. Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. No wonder I do not know how deeply involved I have been with sin. Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him.

John Owen: The Grave That Is Never Satisfied

Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, if it has its own way it will go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could, every thought of unbelief would be atheism if allowed to develop. Every rise of lust, if it has its way reaches the height of villainy; it is like the grave that is never satisfied. The deceitfulness of sin is seen in that it is modest in its first proposals but when it prevails it hardens mens’ hearts, and brings them to ruin.

C.S. Lewis on Atheism

“When I was an atheist my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.  But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?  A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.  What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?  If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I,who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?…Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist–in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless–I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality–namely my idea of justice–was full of sense.  Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.  If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.”

Mere Christianity, bk. II, chap. 1, pp.45-46

Of the Day and the Hour

James White, a Reformed Baptist apologist and pastor of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church in Phoenix, AZ, will be having a radio “debate” with Harold Camping of Family Radio on July 28 and 29. You can access it here: www.aomin.org.

If you’re unfamiliar with Harold Camping, he predicted the Lord’s return in 1994 (not sure what happened there, must have forgotten to carry the 2 when calculating the numerology formulas). He began teaching several years ago that God is judging the churches and has abandoned them, and therefore true believers need to leave the churches. He has recently determined that the Lord will now return on May 21, 2011. It’s hard not to find this kind of “prophecy” amusing.

Remember the words of Jesus in Acts 1:7 when the disciples asked Him when He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority”, and when He told them in Matt. 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” In other words, God has not put that information (the exact time of Christ’s return) in the Bible. It’s not there to be found.

Just know this, whenever it is, be ready.