Don't Wait Until You are Old to Preach Jesus

"The older I grow, the more I am drawn to preach much concerning the person, the atonement, the glory of the Saviour and the influences of the Holy Spirit. There are other truths, important in their places, but unless beheld through the medium of the cross, they have but faint effect."

- John Newton in a letter to John Ryland, Jr.

8 Reasons to Always Attend a Baptism Service (especially when it is not your baptism service!)

Why are baptisms important? Especially when you are not the one getting dunked?

1. Every baptism reminds us of our own and the promises we made to Christ on that day.

2. Standing with those getting baptized is a very visible support of their faith and a kind of silent promise that we are with them in following Jesus.

3. Watching a baptism dramatizes for us the four major things that happened when God saved us:
- our sins were washed away
- we were buried with Christ in His death
- we were raised with Christ to newness of life
- we are guaranteed to pass through the coming judgment safely

4. Whether you are getting baptized or watching a baptism, you are humbled. Nothing points out our need for cleansing and new life quite like being immersed in waters by another.

5. Every baptism gives a lot of attention to Jesus and the Gospel. You will hear people explain how God saved them in this world and you will be refreshingly reminded that real people are really getting converted in real time.

6. Seeing someone baptized lights a fire under our evangelistic efforts – God saved them, why can’t He save more?

7. Baptisms clarify things in the life of a local church. What really matters is God gaining glory as men and women are saved from their sins.

8. Related to the point above, baptisms increase church unity. They remind us all of Who saved us, Who keeps us and Who really runs the church. It is difficult to be divisive and cranky at a baptism service!

For these reasons and more, I think you should decide now to attend every baptism service at your local church. There is too much grace to be missed if you don't.

5 Reasons You Should Be at Day of Prayer

Saturday will mark our annual Day of Prayer. There is probably no other discipline that Christians are more prone to disregard than prayer. We are great excuse-makers when it comes to drumming up reasons not to pray. 

In light of this and the likely opposition we shall meet with from our mutual enemy, I have drawn up a list of five reasons I think you should plan on giving your Saturday morning to pray with us.

Day of Prayer - Saturday, September 7, 2013. 7AM-Noon.

5 Reasons You Should Be at Day of Prayer

1.         It will help you feel the great need we have for God.

            O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

                        my soul thirsts for you;

            my flesh faints for you,

                        as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

(Psalm 63:1)

2.         Sacrificing 5 hours of your “day off” is good for the soul – how much do we really sacrifice for the Lord?

            And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

(Matthew 10:38)

3.         It will re-ignite your sense of purpose. We are not a club, but more a tactical unit. Praying together clarifies mission.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

(Colossians 4:2-4)

4.         It is a mere token investment in the grand scheme of things – five hours out of the 8,760 God gives you every year.

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

(Luke 9:25 )

5.         Praying together unifies the church by directing our hearts away from all our petty differences and on to greater Gospel matters.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

(Philippians 2:4-7)

Just Call Me

I have often told people to just call me when they are tempted to some terrible sin, thinking that if we could just talk at that moment I could help them choose wisely. That always sounds good. But I don’t think it typically works.

Sin always aims to cut us off from others. Usually, the most difficult temptations are most fierce when we are most isolated. That makes the, “just call me” advice either a long-forgotten platitude or a seemingly insurmountable mountain at the moment. Calling a Christian friend in the heat of temptation is often the last thing I do.

I am responsible for my sin. No one else is, not my friends or my circumstances. Of this there can be no mistake. Yet, my friends are responsible to love me.

In WWII, the German Luftwaffe was left to putting boys with 30 hours of flight experience into immediate combat. They experienced an almost 100% failure rate. It was an injustice to send up those young men into those fierce skies. They needed training, mentorship, accountability, instruction, and help. Was it the fault of the flight instructors and Luftwaffe senior officers if these boys died? Well, not immediately. They were not in the cockpit. But no one would doubt they bore part of the blame.

In the same way, when it comes to my sanctification, I am responsible before the Lord, but I need my brothers and sisters to bear something of the burden. They are God’s secondary vehicles of truth to me (the Word of God, mediated through the Spirit of God being primary). That means at one level, the best Christian friends will learn my patterns of sin and rather than wait for me to call them, they will call me. Probably when I least want to hear from them.

This is much harder than putting the responsibility on the offender. It requires me to pray for my friends, involve my life with theirs, and at one level, take responsibility for their actions. Maybe that is where the rub is? Do I really want to have to deal with your stuff as well my own? Love says yes.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV)

Think About God's Love for You

So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more. Every other discovery of God, without this, will but make the soul fly from him; but if the heart be once much taken up with this the eminency of the Father's love, it cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto him. This, if anything, will work upon us to make our abode with him. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? Put, then, this to the venture: exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him. I dare boldly say: believers will find it as thriving a course as ever they pitched on in their lives. Sit down a little at the fountain, and you will quickly have a further discovery of the sweetness of the streams. You who have run from him, will not be able, after a while, to keep at a distance for a moment.

John Owen, Vol. 2, p. 36

Preparing for Sunday, July 28 @GFCTO

Sunday is going to be a great day since we get to witness the baptisms of a bunch of new followers of Jesus Christ. That service will start at 3:00PM with their testimonies to God's saving grace. Then we will head over to our local pool and do what Christians have done for a couple thousand years - immerse some folks in water as a picture of how the guilt of their sins has been washed away.

I always like to remind the church to pray for those getting baptized - especially in the days after their baptism.

Here is how to get ready for Sunday morning:

READ: 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1

PONDER: Here is how (on a Friday afternoon) I am intending to unpack the text.

Title: When All is Dark

1. Things can get bad in the kingdom of God.

2. Sometimes the best thing to do is cry.

3. Sin leads to trouble

4. The light often shines brightest in the darkness.

5. Let your failures stand... so grace is seen.

A Dying Man to Dying Men - Richard Baxter (source)

I was in a conversation recently where a brother was seeking the first source of Richard Baxter's famous statement, "I preached, as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men!"

Thankfully, Dr. Haykin was in the room and he identified the source as Baxter's Poetical Fragments (1st ed.; 1681), p.40, lines 7-8.

I reprint that section of the poem here with most of the spellings and punctuation updated. I did not have much success finding it anywhere else. The exact quote is bolded below.

A Life still near to Death

1. A Life still near to Death, did me possess

With a deep sense of Time’s great preciousness.

To lose an hour I thought a greater loss,

Than much of sordid worldlings golden dross.

I thought them mad that cast their time away,

Being uncertain of another day.

That idly prate, and play, and feast, and drink,

So near Eternity’s most dreadful brink!

With filthy, guilty Souls, unjustifi’d;

Undone for evermore if thus they died.

O! thought I, where is these men’s brains and sense,

Who care no more wither they go from hence?

Pastime I thought worse than a Bediam word:

The Name and Thing my very Soul abhorred.

2.  This methodized my Studies to my gain;

Shamed the contending, jingling, formal vein:

The greatest matters it did first impose:

Necessity my Book and Lesson chose:

I studied first save myself and others;

What edified my own Soul and my Brothers:

Thence to the Branches I in order climb;

First Few and Great, next Many, Small, Sublime.

I nere preferred to Talk, before, to Eat,

Words, before Things, the Dish before the Meat:

And yet I love and value all the rest:

My curious mind would fain to have known the least:

But knowing Life’s too short to reach to all,

I left till last the needless things and small.

3.  The frequent fight of Death’s most awful face,

Rebuked my sloth, and bid me mend my pace!

Thou knew’st my dulness needed such a spur;

So prone was I to trifle and demur.

Who dare his Soul for gain or pleasure fell,

that lives as in the fight of Heaven and Hell?

4.  This called me out to work while it was day;

And warn poor Souls to Turn without delay:

Resolving speedily thy Word to preach;

With Ambrose, I at once did Learn and Teach.

Still thinking I had little time to live,

My fervent heart to win mens Souls did strive.

I Preached, as never sure to preach again,

And as a dying man to dying men!

O how should Preachers Men’s Repenting crave,

Who see how near the Church is to the Grave?

And see that while we Preach and Hear, we Die,

Rapt by swift Time to vast Eternity!

What Statues, or what Hypocrites are they,

Who between sleep and wake to Preach and Pray?

As if they feared wakening the Dead!

Or were but lighting sinners to their Bed!

Who speak of Heaven and Hell as on a Stage!

And make the Pulpit but a Parrot’s Cage?

Who teach as men that care not much who learns;

and preach in jest to men that sin in earns.

surely God’s Messenger, if any man,

should speak with all the seriousness he can;

Who treateth in the Name of the Most High,

About the Matters of Eternity!

Who must prevail with sinners Now or Never,

As those that must be saved Now, if Ever:

When sinners endless Joy or Misery,

On the success of his endeavours lie!

Though God be free, he works by Instruments,

And wisely fitteth them to his intents,

A proud unhumbled Preacher is unmeet

To lay proud sinners humbled at Christ’s feet:

So are the Blind to tell man what god saith,

And faithless en to propagate the Faith.

The Dead are unfit means to raise the Dead;

And Enemies to give the Children Bread:

And utter strangers to the Life to come,

Are not the best Conductors to our home:

They that yet never learned to Live and Die,

Will scarcely teach it others feelingly:

Or if they should Preach others to Salvation,

Unhappy men that Preach their own Damnation.

How oft did I come down with shame and grief!

Not that I was so homely, or so brief;

But that my own Soul was no more awake,

And felt no more the things of which I spake!

That God was named with no more Reverence;

Nor sinners pitied with a deeper sense:

That closer warnings did not pierce men’s Ears,

Set home by greater fervency and tears:

And that my speeches were so cold and sleight,

About things of unutterable weight;

And that I spake with no more seriousness,

When Heaven or Hell attended the success:

As one that sees by Faith the Joys and Woes,

To which the godly and the wicked goes.

O my Dear God! how precious is thy Love?

How should we prize and seek the Joys above?

Thy Methods crossed my ways: my young desire,

To Academic Glory did aspire:

Fain I’d have sate in such a Nurses lap,

Where I might long have had a sluggard’s nap:

Or have been dandled on her Reverend Knees;

And know by honour’d Titles and Degrees;

And there have spend the flower of my days,

In soaring in the Air of human praise:

Yea and I thought in needful to thy Ends,

To make the prejudiced world my friends;

That so my praise might go before thy grace,

Preparing men the Message to embrace;

Also my work and Office to adorn,

And to avoid profane contempt and scorn.

There these were not thy thoughts; thou didst foresee,

That such a course would not be best for me:

Thou mad’st me know that men’s contempt and scorn

Is such a Cross as must be daily born:

Thy Mercy would not have me splendid dross;

A Minister of Pomp; but of the Cross:

That Cross which Hypocrites may Preach and Hear;

But all that fallow Christ must also bear.

No Honour must I have to bring to thee,

But what thou first communicates to me.

In founding of thy Church, thou didst declare

How well all worldly Honours thou couldst spare!

Both in the Chief most blessed Corner Stone,

And in the most of those that build thereon:

And what great, swelling Names have done since then,

Church-Rents and Ruins write without a Pen:

High Titles as the first enchanting Cup,

Cast down the Church by lifting of it up.

Titles reflect on Minds. These must be low:

By humble Love all must thy Servants know:

Yet I deny not but a perfect mind,

May more advantage here than danger find:

thy Soil is oft manured by such dung.

I’ll Honour give to whom it doth belong:

It may be safe to others; but to me

‘Twas best from such Temptations to be free:

Let my preferment lie in serving all:

While I sit low, I have not far to fall.

Keep me from the Temptations of the Devil!

For so thou doest deliver us from Evil.

My youthful Pride and Folly not I see,

That grudged for want of Titles and Degree.

That blushed with shame when this defect was known,

And an inglorious Name could hardly own,

Attempting to have hid it twice or thrice,

With vile equivocations next to lies.

And to thy Methods was unreconciled,

Because I was not Rabbi, Doctor, styled.

Forgive this Pride; and break the Serpent’s brain;

Pluck up the poisonous Root, till none remain.

Give me the Wisdom; Ill not bet the Fame:

Grant me the thing; let others take the name.

Give me the Learning, and it is no harm,

If thou shalt place me in the lowest Form.

Honours are shadows, which from seekers fly;

But follow after those who them deny.

I brought none with me to thy work; 

but there I found more than I easily could bear:

Although thou woulst not give me what I would, 

--Matthew 20v21, Matthew 19v29

Thou gavest me the promised hundred-fold.

O my Dear God! how precious is thy Love?

Thy ways, not ours, lead to the Joys above.