Head-dibs

Doug Whitley as C.H. Spurgeon

Someone dropped me a line that said to the effect (I accidentally deleted it): " I did not ask to be saved. How absurd that God should go on a scape-goat blood-bath for me when I did not ask for it. I don't want to be saved. I love my sin ." Here's a thought from Charles Spurgeon: "There is no other reason why God should save a man, but for his name's sake; there is nothing in a sinner which can entitle him to salvation, or recommend him to mercy; it must be God's own heart which must dictate the motive why men are to be saved. One person says, "God will save me, because I am so upright." Sir, he will do no such thing. Says another, "God will save me because I am so talented." Sir, he will not. Your talent! Why thou drivelling, self-conceited idiot, thy talent is nothing compared with that of the angel that once stood before the throne, and sinned, and who now is cast into the bottomless pit for ever! If he would save men for their tal...

[repost from Thursday, April 13, 2006] “ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast .” This last week was very exciting in terms of evangelism. My daughter went with me to Finlay Park last Sunday and we talked to 11 people about their need for Christ. We have to remember that as we go out, we are only sowing seed. We only spoke with about 4 at USC Wednesday night and all professed Christ. I like one guy’s response—he got right to the point and proclaimed Christ’ payment for the penalty of his sin. All I could do is grin and shake his hand. It’s hard to see people’s face change when they realize their sinful state before the LORD then choose to hang on to sin and not repent. Last Sunday each couple we talked to had a very different dynamic. One girl delighted in her admitting that all the bad she had ever done was break the 9th commandment. Her delight was quickly turned to distress when she learned...

"I believe, also, that one of the best ways of convincing men of error is not so much to denounce the error as to proclaim the Truth more clearly. If a stick is very crooked and you wish to prove that it is so, get a straight one and quietly lay it down by its side. When men look, they will surely see the difference. The Word of God has a very keen edge about it and all the cutting words you need you had better borrow from there." --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Little sins, like little thieves, may open the door to greater ones outside. Christians, recollect that little sins will spoil your communion with Christ. Little sins, like little stains in silk, may damage the fine texture of fellowship. Little sins, like little irregularities in the machinery, may spoil the whole fabric of your religion. The one dead fly spoils the whole pot of ointment. That one thistle may seed a continent with noxious weeds. Let us, Brethren, kill our sins as often as we can find them. Someone said—'The heart is full of unclean birds. It is a cage of them.' 'Ah, but,' said another Divine, 'you must not make that an apology— for a Christian’s business is to wring their necks.' And so it is. If there are evil things, it is our business to kill them. Christians must not tolerate secret sins. We must not harbor traitors. It is high treason against the King of Heaven. Let us drag them out into the light and offer them upon the altar, givin...

posted by Phil Johnson The Pyro Maniacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Wait for Signs and Wonders," a sermon Spurgeon preached on the last Sunday morning in October of 1869. ou are acting the part of an idolater. What does an idolater do? He says, "I cannot believe in an unseen God; I must have a golden calf or an image, that I can see with my eyes and touch with my hand." You say just the same. You cannot believe God's naked word, you demand something you can feel, something you can see. Sheer idolatry. Do you not see it? You make your own feelings and emotions, or strange impressions, to be more worthy of trust than even God himself. You make them idols, and put them into God's place. You, so far as you can, undeify the Deity. O tremble at such a crime as this!

" This sickness is not unto death ." John 11:4 From our Lord’s words we learn that there is a limit to sickness. Here is an "unto" within which its ultimate end is restrained, and beyond which it cannot go. Lazarus might pass through death, but death was not to be the ultimatum of his sickness. In all sickness, the Lord saith to the waves of pain, "Hitherto shall ye go, but no further." His fixed purpose is not the destruction, but the instruction of his people. Wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth, and regulates the heat. 1. The limit is encouragingly comprehensive. The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition, and effects of all our sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestinated, each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes the ordaining hand of him who numbers the hairs of our head . 2. This lim...

I am going to be away from the computer until sometime in early August. In the meantime, see if you can answer these questions: Why do 80-90% of those making a decision for Christ fall away from the faith? What is the principle that Spurgeon, Wesley, Whitefield, etc., used to reach the lost? Why has the Church neglected it? Don't let anything stop you from listening to this incredible teaching. (This is NOT a sermon about Hell.)

The first principle a student learns in English 101 is that one does not define a word by itself. A good dictionary will not report the meaning of “definition” as “the action or process of defining.” One does not have a more clear understanding of “definition” than he did before. On the other hand, to say that “definition” means “the action of determining or identifying the essential qualities or meaning of; to discover the meaning of; to fix or mark the limits of” helps the reader understand fully the meaning of the word. Good theology is wrecked by inadequate definitions. When we search for the meaning of “sin” we most often hear Rom. 3:23 roll from our tongues, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is correct, but incomplete. Romans 3:23 actually tells us what the state of mankind is, not what “sin” is except that sinful mankind and the glory of God do not coincide. What is sin? It would be helpful to identify those passages that state plainly, “sin is” and ...

A counselor at church camp told of his experience with a nine-year-old boy who started to cry when they turned out the cabin lights the first night. "Was he afraid of the dark?" the counselor asked. "No," the boy replied; "he just didn't want to be attacked by the 'killer rabbits.'" Some older kids at home had told him that there were "killer rabbits" that would come out at night and attack the campers. Jesus was constantly reassuring the disciples with the words, " Fear not ." Their fears betrayed their lack of faith. When one traces these words and their usage throughout the Bible, it seems that one of man's constant needs is to be reassured of the presence and comfort of God almighty. Christians can draw on this presence to find comfort and destroy their fears. The problem is that when many have gotten into the habit of “whistling through the cemetery,” trying to be brave and do whatever it takes to get through. Many ...

"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for." (Spurgeon) I’ve gone without posting a witnessing report for a while now for a few reasons, the foremost is that I’ve not had dedicated time to make a report. I shall endeavor to catch up the news here. One of my daughters has joined me on a few outings and would probably tell you how crazy her dad is. She is quite supportive and I am glad to have her along in this rare father-daughter opportunity. Together we have walked much of downtown and have shared some sights and scenes together, which in its own rite, has been quite enjoyable. I am also glad to have her along to talk to disciple her in this unique way. We spent a time or two on campus at the University of South Carolina and have had some good conversations with folks. Our best conversations are at Finlay Park. This last week I was j...

Very little can be compared to an upset home (hurricanes and tsunamis come to mind). The last thing anyone wants is to live in a place of strife, where family remain in contention. 1 Samuel opens with this setting. How Elkanah did it is beyond me. He had two wives that did not get along and it can be strongly argued that he made life difficult for himself with the whole polygamy thing. “Polygamy was never God’s intention for humankind, although He tolerated it; in every biblical instance polygamy created domestic problems.” [i] But this is not really about Elkanah. It’s about God’s sovereignty, it’s about leadership and interestingly, it is also about things like depression, anger, jealousy, and other type problems people face individually. As far as the text is concerned, we are able to focus on Elkanah’s wives, namely Hannah, and learn many lessons that touch on all these areas. God closed Hannah’s womb and Peninnah, her rival, would irritate Hannah with the fact of her barrenness. ...

Someone once said that a preacher should to be ready to preach at the drop of a hat and be on the second point before it hits the ground. Well, I don't have a hat, so please be satisified with this thought from Spurgeon: "WHEN we were in Venice we purchased a few curiosities, and finding them burdensome, we thought of sending them home by one of the English vessels lying in the Canal. We went out in a gondola with our box, and having asked for the captain of one of the vessels, we put to him the question, "Will you take a box for us to London, and what is the charge?" His reply was very ready, "I can't say till I know what's in it, for I don't want to get into trouble." A very common sense answer indeed; we admired its caution and honesty. What a pity that men do not exercise as much care in spiritual matters, as to what they will receive or reject." Read the rest here .

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” I didn’t know who he was, but he came highly recommended and was received with great flare and panache. He came to guide our church through a Sunday School Revival one Spring. I remember distinctly the first message he preached on Isaiah 54:2, “ Enlarge the place of your tent; stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; lengthen your cords and strengthen your pegs .” That message really impacted me back in 1988. And I remember telling him so. His response, “stick with me this week and you will learn more than you will ever learn in Bible College or Seminary.” And He was right. One of the great things he said that week concerned the life of the local church that I have personalized and applied to my own life; after all, as Spurgeon says, it begins with me. He said, “there are three ways to look at the church [my life]: it grows, maintains, or dies. And ...

God sees everything. Proof of this is found in Numbers 7, where it is recorded the leaders of Israel all gave their offerings, one person representing each tribe. The detail is astounding—each offering is identical—and God noticed and inspired that each offering be recorded in each detail. Another wonderful sequence of events is in the following chapters. The Levites are brought before the people and are consecrated before the LORD then Israel celebrates the first Passover since the Exodus, not to forget an explanation of how the cloud directed the movements of the Israelites. While this is on my mind: we are getting ready to move again. Seems like we move a lot. But not as much as these people! Notice the text says that when the glory of the LORD went up, they moved! Sometimes they would be in one place for a few days, a couple of weeks, months or years! That last statement ought to make one think . . . does the writer know something everyone else does not, or is he writing in retrosp...

“ Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him .” Spurgeon was right . . . we are just too busy. We would really like to spend time thinking about it, perhaps weeping over it, but business calls, duty demands, a promise we made to someone somewhere must be fulfilled—just can’t think about it NOW. We’ll come back to it later, maybe tonight. If not then, then later for certain or perhaps another day. “Believer in Jesus,” Spurgeon writes, “can you gaze upon Him without tears, as He stands before you the mirror of agonizing love?” Spurgeon even tells himself, “My soul, stand here and weep over His ...

I’m inclined to think that not many people have read through Leviticus. What do you think? Ever read it? Ever looked at it—on purpose? Right away the reader is faced with a decision that God was already prepared for. This is hard, legal, ceremonial stuff that we have little or no use for today. So to us, the first six chapters of Leviticus are quite ( yawn ) dry. [i] If you have a hard time with it, think with me for a moment: an entire nation of people has just been delivered from Egypt and God Himself, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Covenant making God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has just moved into the neighborhood—right smack dab in the middle of the cul-de-sac, mind you. An entire nation of people gets to worship . . . at this . . . little . . . tent. The courtyard is small . I mean, real small . The outer court alone was 300 cubits, or 450 feet around the perimeter or 11, 250 square feet. How was a nation of people (around 6 million) to fit in that? That’s like my entire ci...

Didja hear the one about the young preacher who wrote home to his preacher dad about the problem he was having? The son had just been called to a church in a university town. He told his dad that every time he preached and started to say something about science, he remembered that a scientist was in the congregation. When he spoke about history, he remembered that a history professor was present. He was also intimidated because of the English professor and the mathematician. “Dad, what am I supposed to do?” he asked. His father wrote back and said, “Son, just preach the Bible. They won’t know a thing about it.” [i] What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Nothing. I just thought it was a good story. Summary of Exodus 17-20: Moses is instructed to strike the rock at Horeb for water, and then Israel prevails in battle against Amalek. Now that the people are so many and need to learn to live with one another as God’s people and not slaves, Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law) ad...

This is the third time I’ve had to restart this blog entry. Third time because the LORD has pointed so many things out to me in these first few chapters of Exodus that I have tried to capture them all. But I’ve decided not to do that. Instead I will focus on just one great overriding theme in these first few verses, and that would be found in the Egyptians. God demonstrates fully his divine plan. He has no opposition, really. Those who oppose Him only think they do. Remember the way God stripped the pantheon of the Egyptians in the creation account and in so-doing, demonstrated to the first audience of the book that there are no gods? Now He is doing it again. Every time God does something in Egypt, it is not so Charleton Heston can look good someday on the big screen. It was not solely for Israel’s deliverance either. It was for the promise laid in Abraham that the nations be blessed. God was moving against the gods of Egypt and those who worshipped them! Setting: the Jacobsons...