The Plan of God |
Discipleship |
Faith |
Sin |
Perseverence |
Prayer |
Communion With God |
Pursuing God |
Devotion |
Following Jesus |
Time With God |
Sanctification |
Spiritual Warfare |
Trust |
The Word of God |
View All Categories
The thought that a holy God might have to punish his Son to justify us is a stumbling block. And so men have tried to make the atonement of God palatable to contemporary tastes, and the effect has been devastating.
Recent Entries
Making Sense Of It AllJanuary 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Suffering Saints
January 25, 2012
We get nervous thinking about it - suffering for the sake of Christ. How necessary is it, and what does it produce in us?
George Herbert on Prayer Meetings
January 21, 2012
Prayer Meetings are a thing of the past. Or so it seems. What has been lost? Maybe more than we realize.
When Fear Is Good
January 7, 2012
NO FEAR, we are told. And the point is well taken. But fear can be healthy, at least when it comes to eternal matters.
Happy, Happy, Happy
January 4, 2012
The declaration of independence holds up the pursuit of happiness as a right. Did you ever consider the reading the bible might be the one source that will never let you down?
The Twelve Signs Of Grace
December 22, 2011
Self-examination is not easy to do. The tendency is to let ourselves off easy. But examine we must, for eternity is at stake.
"Ouch!!"
July 22, 2011
Spiritual pride is hard to detect. Jonathan Edwards gives some tips. The process can be painful, but necessary.
A Free But Most Costly Gospel
March 22, 2009
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Where is the wise man?
Where is the scholar?
Where is the philosopher of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
P. T. Forsythe lived for one thing as a theologian in England at the turn of the 20th Century. His "main thing" was keeping the atoning work of the cross the "main thing." It was like the preverbal placing the finger in the dike, as the thinking of the day was to strip Golgotha of its ability to be a stumbling block. "Not so fast," said Forsythe, again and again.
In THE WORK OF CHRIST, he states that the "old orthodoxies....had a true eye for what truly mattered in Christianity, and especially how they grappled with the final facts of human nature, and its darling sefl-will. They closed with ultimates. They did not heal lightly the wound of the people.
It is the grace of Israel we need; for the grace of Greece fails heart, and flesh and moral will. It is subjective sand when we want objective rock. It does not enable us to keep our feet.
We need a hand to lift us by the hair, if need be, and hurt us much in the doing of it, if only it sets un on the Rock of Ages. And the old Puritans (now sixpence a volume octave) at least do that. And they do because...they stood at a center of things with their religion of the moral Atonement, of a free but most costly Gospel.
They grasped what makes God the Christian God - not only a free grace but a costly one. It is not only the freedom of His grace, but its infinite price to Him that makes God God."
"By terrible things in righteousness dost Thou answer us, O God of our salvation.
DARBY TRANSLATION
Psalm 65:5
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.
Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill thy law's commands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and thou alone.
ROCK OF AGES
A. Toplady
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Where is the wise man?
Where is the scholar?
Where is the philosopher of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
P. T. Forsythe lived for one thing as a theologian in England at the turn of the 20th Century. His "main thing" was keeping the atoning work of the cross the "main thing." It was like the preverbal placing the finger in the dike, as the thinking of the day was to strip Golgotha of its ability to be a stumbling block. "Not so fast," said Forsythe, again and again.
In THE WORK OF CHRIST, he states that the "old orthodoxies....had a true eye for what truly mattered in Christianity, and especially how they grappled with the final facts of human nature, and its darling sefl-will. They closed with ultimates. They did not heal lightly the wound of the people.
It is the grace of Israel we need; for the grace of Greece fails heart, and flesh and moral will. It is subjective sand when we want objective rock. It does not enable us to keep our feet.
We need a hand to lift us by the hair, if need be, and hurt us much in the doing of it, if only it sets un on the Rock of Ages. And the old Puritans (now sixpence a volume octave) at least do that. And they do because...they stood at a center of things with their religion of the moral Atonement, of a free but most costly Gospel.
They grasped what makes God the Christian God - not only a free grace but a costly one. It is not only the freedom of His grace, but its infinite price to Him that makes God God."
"By terrible things in righteousness dost Thou answer us, O God of our salvation.
DARBY TRANSLATION
Psalm 65:5
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.
Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill thy law's commands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and thou alone.
ROCK OF AGES
A. Toplady
