The Pilgrim’s Promise

In John Bunyan’s book, The Pilgrim’s Progress, the scene in Doubting Castle surely resonates with those who follow Christ. It is there that Christian, and his companion, Hopeful, are captured by Giant Despair and are thrust into his dungeon.

It’s not hard to imagine Bunyan, himself, facing doubt and despair as he languished 12 years in a Bedford jail for the offense of preaching without a license from the Church of England. It was there that Bunyan prayed about his temptation to doubt, as written in his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. His personal petition can easily be prayed by anyone in the face of temptation.

Now while the Scriptures lay before me and laid sin anew at my door, that saying in Luke 18:1, with others, did encourage me to prayer. Then the tempter again laid at me very sore, suggesting that neither the mercy of God nor yet the blood of Christ did at all concern me, nor could they help me for my sin; therefore it was but in vain to pray. Yet, thought I, I will pray. But, said the tempter, your sin is unpardonable. Well, said I, I will pray. It is to no boot, said he. Yet, said I, I will pray. So I went to prayer to God; and while I was at prayer, I uttered words to this effect: “Lord, Satan tells me that neither thy mercy nor Christ’s blood is sufficient to save my soul. Lord, shall I honor thee most by believing thou [will] and [can]; or [Satan], by believing thou neither [will] nor [can]? Lord, I would [gladly] honor thee by believing thou [will] and [can].”

Following his release in 1672, John Bunyan would faithfully devote the remainder of his life to writing and preaching.

And just how did Christian and Hopeful fair? In his pocket, Christian possessed a key called Promise, which could be used to unlock any door in Doubting Castle. With that key, he and his companion escaped the giant and continued on their journey to the Celestial City.

Things Do Not “Just Happen”

Arturo G. Azurdia III recounts this story of Kent & Barbara Hughes:

[S]ome years ago [now] … Barbara checked into the local hospital for the purpose of undergoing a very simple surgical procedure. And while she was in surgery, Kent waited patiently in the lobby. During that time, much to his surprise, he was greeted by a friend of his wife’s niece, a young girl by the name of Suzanne. Suzanne hardly knew Barbara, had no idea that Barbara was undergoing surgery that afternoon. She was a lab technician in the hospital who rarely, if ever by the way, walked through the waiting area of the hospital. After a brief conversation, she wished Kent and Barbara the best and went on her way. A little while later, the doctor came into the waiting area and told Kent that the surgery had gone well and that he would be able to see Barbara in about an hour and a half. And so, Kent decided to run home and get some things and come back to the hospital. When he arrived back at the hospital, he found his daughter there totally distraught, only to discover that Barbara had been rushed back into surgery. She had started to haemorrhage and the doctors didn’t know why. This went on for five and a half hours, late into the night. Finally, after doing everything they could to stop the bleeding, without success, the doctors closed Barbara back up. At two in the morning, the entire pastoral staff from the church showed up at the hospital to pray and uphold the family. Barbara continued to haemorrhage, however, throughout the night. They continued to replace her blood but they couldn’t find a way to make the bleeding stop.

           On the morning of the next day, with the family still gathered in the waiting room, Suzanne walked by, altogether unaware of what had transpired through the night. She decided to bring Barbara some magazines to read. And while she notices the family gathered together in crisis, it dawns on her, it probably is inappropriate for me to be here and so she very quietly turns around and begins to walk away when she hears Kent’s associate pastor say to him, “You need to go in to encourage Barbara, Kent. She knows her blood will not clot. She knows she’s dying.” Suzanne hears that little phrase, “her blood will not clot,” and her memory immediately goes back to an occasion ten years earlier when she was in med school with Barbara’s niece. One evening, while they were in the lab, with nothing else to do, out of sheer boredom, they decide to take each other’s blood test. And, in so doing, they found out that Barbara’s niece had a rare condition that prevented her blood from clotting properly. She runs back to her lab, looks up the data on Barbara’s niece, prints it out, and runs it to the nurse overseeing Barbara’s care. The nurse looks at it, takes it to the surgeon. He, in turn, has it immediately sent to a pathologist who compares Barbara’s blood to the blood condition of her niece. He determines that they have the very same problem and thus orders a course of treatment that proves to save Barbara’s life.

It just so happened that ten years earlier two medical students were so bored with their day that they decided to do blood work on each other? It just so happened that one of these same lab technicians would walk through a part of the hospital that she very rarely frequented on the very same day that Kent and Barbara happened to be there? It just so happened that this same young girl returned the next morning only to overhear the words, “her blood isn’t clotting”? It just so happened that her memory was sufficiently jogged to remember the apparently meaningless event ten years before?

Story recounted by Arturo G. Azurdia III in a sermon entitled “It Just So Happened…?” available online.

God Works His Grace Through His People

“Believer, what are you doing, right now, to show God’s grace to others?” The Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 4:10, reminds his readers that “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (NIV). The Apostle Paul expands on this in Romans 12 saying, “If a man’s gift is … serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.” Whatever your gift is, use it. Use it to serve others because, if you don’t, then you are not faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. Brothers and sisters, God works his grace through people. Be one of those people.

This is excerpt from the sermon, Boaz: The Other Corner of God’s Smiling Face for Naomi, which can be found at  February 2015.

Remember the Sacrifice

It’s hard not to take life for granted. In North America, we have so much of seemingly everything at our disposal. We have access to education, books, technology, healthcare, food in various forms, etc. Yet none of these things have come without some type of sacrifice.

Education comes with the sacrifice of the time and energy of teachers, parents, children, administrators, and support staff. School systems, as we know them today, have come a long way since their introduction as one-room schoolhouses. Yet this evolution would not have happened without the work put into reforming child labor and education laws. Similarly, books wouldn’t be available without the sacrifices of writers, publishers and printing companies. In the 15th century, a man named Johannes Gutenberg put in focused time and energy to create the printing press, without which mass-produced books would not exist. Further, the concept of circulating and expressing various ideas have come by the hands of cultural reformers throughout the ages along with the lawmakers who fought to protect free speech. And, lest we forget, our own freedoms in North America have come at the cost of many young lives in wars fought over the last 200 years.

Sacrifices were necessary for all the things that we now enjoy today. But as Christians, we recognize the greatest gift we enjoy is salvation. Our salvation has come at the cost and sacrifice of our dear Redeemer. In this new year, before we fall headlong into sin, let us remember Christ’s sacrifice and strive to walk in newness of life.

Final Reflections of John Newton: It Was All of Grace

John Newton, the slave ship captain turned pastor, is famously known for the hymn of faith, “Amazing Grace.” It was grace that sustained Newton in life and would sustain him in death. Some of his final words were recorded by the English minister, William Jay.

“I saw Mr. Newton near the closing scene. He was hardly able to talk; and all I find I had noted down upon my leaving him was this: ‘My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior.’” (The Autobiography of the Rev. William Jay: With Reminiscences of Some Distinguished Contemporaries, 1855)

See How Our Saviour Has Come

The Lord might have come with thunderbolts in both his hands he might have come like Elias to call fire from heaven; but no, his hands are full of gifts of love, and his presence is the guarantee of grace. The babe born in the manger might have been another prophet of tears, or another son of thunder, but he was not so: he came in gentleness, his glory and his thunder alike laid aside.

          “‘Twas mercy filled the throne,

          And wrath stood silent by,

          When Christ on the kind errand came

          To sinners doomed to die.”

Rejoice, ye who feel that ye are lost; your Saviour comes to seek and save you. Be of good cheer ye who are in prison, for be comes to set you free. Ye who are famished and ready to die, rejoice that he has consecrated for you a Bethlehem, a house of bread, and he has come to be the bread of life to your souls. Rejoice, O sinners, everywhere for the restorer of the castaways, the Saviour of the fallen is born.

 —from Charles H. Spurgeon’s sermon, “Joy Born at Bethlehem”, December 24, 1871

Do You Exalt Yourself Over Others?

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he warns against false teachers and lays out a laundry list of sins:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. (1 Timothy 1:8-10 ESV)

Yes, Paul says there are sins that people commit which are contrary to God’s law. But then Paul says this about himself:

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. (1 Timothy 1:12-13a)

Do you see how Paul portrayed himself as a sinner? Paul, a godly man who was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:5-6)

But he says he was a “blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.” We may want to ask Paul, how can both things be true?

But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 1:13b-14)

O what hope this gives to us who could not even reach the level of Paul’s Phariseeism. Then Paul finishes with this phrase that has been quoted by many faithful men and women (and as the King James translates):

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)

Will We Offer Grace This Christmas?

How sad it is when Christians say things that contradict what the Bible teaches. How much worse when it comes from the mouth of a pastor. And of course, with instant everything on social media, anything that is said or digitally recorded is transmitted quickly around the world.

Consider the recent headline of the “pastor” in Arizona who has sparked controversy by advocating hatred and murder. This is the same type of incendiary language that provokes the cries of the media and others to ban and criminalize all language that would condemn anything the Bible calls sin as being wrong. There is a way to dialogue honestly about sin and its consequences, but the methods used by such groups as the Westboro church only cut off the discussion. These groups project their moral and spiritual superiority over all others, and treat cruelly all who do not live up to their standards. Though they use the Word of God to justify their actions, they deny people grace and even the hope of forgiveness.

Brothers and sisters, these things ought never to be said of Christians. We worship the God who humbled himself by taking on human flesh and willingly died for people who hated Him.

Advocating the murder of individuals does not promote the offer of free grace to sinners. And the Bible says, “For all [of us] have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) We all deserve God’s judgement for our sin. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Brothers and sisters, pray for these pastors, and all pastors who venture to speak as the mouthpieces of God, that they would heed the warning of James 3:1 that we who teach, as the King James puts it, “shall receive the greater condemnation.”

As we approach this Christmas holiday, let us offer His grace to sinners; that grace that came in the form of a human (as a helpless baby, no less). He lived the life of love and respect toward God and our fellow humans that we should live, and died the death that we deserve for our hatred of God and His creation.

Give Out Of The Wealth That God Has Given Us

As we think about Philippians 4 and how we ought to give, consider the words of English scholar and Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis:

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. If our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them. – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1952), 81-82.

Here are some other helpful thoughts and strategies to consider:

Graduated Tithe: A Giving Strategy

Practice of Tithing as the Minimum Standard of Christian Giving

Ten Principles of Christian Giving

 

Content in Any Circumstance

Jeremiah Burroughs, the great Puritan preacher of yesteryear said that many men and women will in general say that they must submit to God in affliction. In fact, he says,

I suppose that if you were to go now from one end of this congregation to the other and speak thus to every soul: “Would you not submit to God’s disposal, in whatever condition He might place you?” you would say, “God forbid that it should be otherwise!” But we have a saying: There is a great deal of deceit in general statements. In general, you would submit to anything; but what if it is in this or that particular case that crosses you most?—then, anything but that! We are usually apt to think that any condition is better than that condition in which God has placed us. Now, this is not contentment; it should be not only to any condition in general, but for the kind of affliction that most crosses you. God, it may be, strikes you in your child—“Oh, if it had been in my possessions,” you say, “I would be content!” Perhaps He strikes you in your marriage—“Oh,” you say, “I would rather have been stricken in my health.” And if He had struck you in your health—“Oh, then, if it had been in my trading, I would not have cared.” But we must not be our own carvers. Whatever particular afflictions God may place us in, we must be content in them. (Jeremiah Burroughs, “Christian Contentment Described” in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.

To discover more about Jeremiah Burroughs, a man hailed as “a prince of preachers”, visit these helpful links:

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/meetthepuritans/jeremiahburroughs.html

http://www.challies.com/articles/the-puritans-jeremiah-burroughs

http://www.monergism.com/topics/puritans/jeremiah-burroughs-1600-1646