Thursday, April 19, 2012

Dever on Monologue Preaching

The following is taken from Mark Dever's latest book entitled, Preach.  It is extremely pertinent to a 'christian' generation that has by and large forgotten that it is through "the foolishness of preaching" that people are saved (1 Cor. 1:21, NET). Not entertainment. Not slick presentations. Not emotional appeal. Not hip youth pastors or tight worship teams. The first two chapters of Paul's letter to the immature Corinthian church are a rebuke to our insipid, post-modern, latte drinking, entertainment seeking

The empty pulpit in many of our church buildings well displays the spiritual reality. We run around seeking life for our churches and life for ourselves through a million different methods, and the one means God has given for bringing people into a relationship with Himself stands neglected and disdained. In the act of preaching—a congregation hearing the voice of one man who stands behind the Scriptures—God has given us an important symbol of the fact that we come into relationship with Him by His Word. Just as surely as Abram was called to God by the word of promise addressing him, so we as Christians are made God’s people by believing God and trusting His promises. In a word, we come into relationship with God through faith, and “faith comes,” Paul tells us in Romans 10, “from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
There is only one God, and He is a relational and communicating, personal being who speaks to us and initiates relationship with us. Those powerful, life-giving truths are not only proclaimed but also powerfully symbolized by the preaching of God’s Word. He speaks, and therefore we preach.
As Mark Dever says in an endorsement of Al Mohler's book, He is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World, "Where are the Spurgeons of this generation?"

May our Lord Jesus, in His great love for His church, send this generation many such monologue preachers who speak as God's mouthpieces to a dying, Hell-bound world.

In Christ, and for His glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Resurrection Changes Everything

I'm currently reading a book entitled, "Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything" by Adrian Warnock. His preface is just too good to not share with others.

For Christians all over the world, every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. We meet each week, among other things, in order to celebrate the glorious, wondrous fact that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus' resurrection really did change everything. It changed the cross from a tragedy into a triumph...This was the most powerful divine event in the history of creation, and it ushered in a new age of the Holy Spirit's activity and power in saving and transforming lives.
When considering if Christianity is true, it all boils down to the whether Jesus rose from the dead. The lives of Christians today demonstrate that the resurrection is still changing people. It changes fear into love, despair into joy. The resurrection changes people from being spiritually dead to being alive to God. It changes guilty condemnation into a celebration of forgiveness and freedom. It changes anxiety into a hope that goes beyond the grave. It can change our sinful hearts so they want to follow the Lord Jesus, and the power of the resurrection is relentlessly killing the sin in every true Christian. Because we neglect to emphasize this truth, many Christians have a meager expectation of the extent to which we can today experience resurrection life and victory over sin. The resurrection is far from being something we only benefit from in the future!
As John MacArthur says,
The resurrection is the ground of our assurance, it is the basis for all our future hopes, and it is the source of power in our daily lives here and now. It gives us courage in the midst of persecution, comfort in the midst of trials, and hope in the midst of the world's darkness.
Warnock continues,
Christians have therefore already been changed by Jesus' resurrection. Jesus really is alive today. Because of this Christians are also alive in a whole new way. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is living in every true Christian. God wants us not just to believe in Jesus' resurrection but to be transformed by it and to receive the power we need to live the way we know we ought. For all of us, the questions, did Jesus rise from the dead? and what are the implications of His resurrection? are the most important ones we will ever answer.
 If Warnock is right, we would do well to understand more deeply, and reflect more seriously, and apply more realistically the glorious truth and subsequent implications of the immeasurable greatness of God's power at work in us (Eph. 1:19ff.).

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Is Jesus Yahweh?

One of the younger ladies in our church asked for some resources to help her dialogue with a friend of hers who left the church and has since become a jehovah's witness (I have intentionally not capitalized their title out of reverence for the true & living Yahweh).

I sent her some good stuff from the ESV Study Bible, which I thought was excellent.

Then I went to Robert Reyburn's Systematic Theology and basically sent her his section on how the NT writers ascribe the divine Name of Yahweh used in the OT to Jesus in the NT.

Here, with a couple of additions, is what I sent her.  I hope it will help us as we contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.  Jesus is God.  Let us remain confident and unashamed of what the Scriptures make so abundantly and gloriously clear.

1. Moses' description of Yahweh as "King of kings" (Deut. 10:17) is applied by John to Christ (Rev. 17:14; 19:16).

2. The author of Hebrews applies the entirety of Psalm 102:25-27 to Jesus (1:10-12).

3. Proverbs 18:10 provides the background for Peter's assertion in Acts 4:12

4. Joel's summons to trust in Yahweh (2:32) is employed by Paul to summon men to faith in Christ (Rom. 10:13).

5. When Isaiah looked upon Yahweh (Isa. 6:1-3), according to John he was beholding the glory of the preincarnate Son of God (John 12:40-41).

6. Isaiah's call to sanctify Yahweh in the heart (8:12-13) is applied by Peter to Christ - He is the One who is to be sanctified as "Lord" in the heart (1 Pet. 3:14-15).

7. Isaiah's representation of Yahweh as a stone that causes men to stumble & a rock that makes them fall (8:14) is applied by Paul to Christ (Rom. 9:32-33).

8. Yahweh, whose coming would be preceded by Yahweh's forerunner (Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1; 4:5), is equated w/ Christ (Matt. 3:3; 11:10; Mark 1:2-3; Luke 1:16-17; 3:4; John 1:23).

9. Jesus Himself employs Yahweh's words in Isaiah 43:10 & 45:22 to summon men to be His witnesses & to rest in Him (Acts 1:8; Matt. 11:28).

10. Isaiah's description of Yahweh as the "first & last" (44:6) is employed by John to describe the glorified Christ (Rev. 2:8; 22:12-13).

11. Yahweh, "before whom every kneww shall bow & by whom every mouth shall swear (Isa. 45:23) is identified by Paul as Jesus (Rom. 14:10; Phil. 2:10).

12. Yahweh, the pierced One upon whom men would look & mourn (Zech. 12:10), John tells us is the Christ (John 19:37).

13. Jesus is given the divine Name, "Lord" (NT) by the Father in Phil. 2:9).

14. That Yahweh is called "the only Savior" in the OT (Isa. 43:11; 45:15, 21) and applied by multiple NT writers to Jesus shows that Jesus is no mere angel, but divine (see Tit. 1:3 & compare w/ 1:4; 2:10 w/ 2:13; 3:4 w/ 3:6). That Paul does this 3 times in the same context is more than mere coincidence.

There are plenty more examples.  If they deny this much, there is no use giving any more, as their hearts are closed to the truth & hardened to what the Scriptures plainly & repetitively teach.


In Christ, and for His divine glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan