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We Need Gospel Clarity

By Stephen Kneale — 3 years ago

A life that seems to have no interest in Christ and his church nor pays any heed to his commands is not a living, active faith promoted from within by the Holy Spirit. It is a non-existent faith. It is belief that some words you said years ago is good enough to deal with your sin once and for all and to secure a place in Heaven for you. I’m afraid that isn’t a teaching you will find anywhere in the Bible. Apart from ongoing, active faith in Christ there is no salvation and telling people otherwise is not loving them, it is actively encouraging them on their way to a lost eternity.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard a story approximating the following. Somebody has grown up going to church, hearing the gospel and made a profession of faith or prayed the sinners prayer. They apparently go on with the Lord for a bit until, eventually, drifting away from the church and Christ. If pressed, they might still say they believe, but there is absolutely nothing about their lifestyle that gives any indication that this is any more than mere words. For many, there isn’t even a claim to love Jesus.
This sort of story does the rounds and few Christians wouldn’t be able to tell you of one they know about. But I have also noticed, with troubling frequency, how many people under those circumstances still want to insist that person is a believer and belongs to the Lord. There is no sign of fruit, no evidence of belief and often no understanding of the gospel. But nonetheless, we still hear that the Lord still has them, for some reason. This concerns me deeply for two reasons.
First, it doesn’t do anything to help those people come to Christ. If we continue to affirm that somebody is a believer who has clearly departed from the faith, we are doing nothing other than comfort that person all the way to perdition. In all honesty, I cannot wrap my head around why you would want that for your family and friends. Why would you want them to go on in the false belief that they’re alright as they are by telling them the profession they made years before – despite every evidence to the contrary that it ultimately wasn’t genuine – are somehow still believers?
If we claim to love our family and friends, we surely can’t be content with affirming them in beliefs that are actively damaging to them. They don’t need our reassurance that they’re safe in the Lord; they need the gospel. They need to hear that they aren’t okay and, if they carry on as they are, they will remain outside of Christ and face all the disastrous consequences of being so. To comfort somebody as a believer, to affirm faith that clearly doesn’t exist, does them no favour at all. It is actually damaging the very people we claim to love.
I have heard similar things said to comfort believing parents regarding their unbelieving children. But again, it might feel nice to tell people that the Lord still has their children, but we don’t actually help them or their children by pretending it is so. Instead, helping people see the reality of the situation – that without ongoing, active faith in Christ there is no salvation and that is effected by the Holy Spirit, who is obviously absent in the heart of someone who has no concern for holiness – means they can continue to hold out the gospel clearly to those who need to hear it.
I appreciate with family and friends it is not always the easiest thing to do. Especially if the gospel is considered to be something we have heard hundreds of times before and have no interest in it.
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Ed Litton, Southern Baptist Leaders, and Judgment Day Honesty: A Call for Accountability and Action by Southern Baptist Churches

By Tom Ascol — 3 years ago

The eighteenth-century writer, Samuel Johnson, once quipped, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Though, to my knowledge, I am not slated for such an end, I can testify to the sanctifying value of drawing near to death. It provides perspective and an opportunity to think simply, critically, and honestly, by reminding one of that unavoidable reality that Scripture announces unequivocally: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
On that day, when called to give an account for every idle word and the stewardship entrusted to us as those who have received the gospel of Jesus Christ, the kind of equivocation that often serves so well when we don’t want to make necessary judgments will be meaningless. As a Pastor, I have a double burden in this regard because I will “have to give an account” as one of those charged with keeping watch over the souls of the people I serve (Hebrews 13:17).
My late friend and mentor, Ernie Reisinger would occasionally exhort me when dealing with difficult, vitally important matters, to speak with “judgment day honesty.” He meant that I should evaluate the matter with the kind of seriousness that recognizes one day I will stand and give an account for what I say and do.
It is in that spirit that I have tried to evaluate the antics of many Southern Baptist leaders and pastors over the last seventeen months. An honest evaluation of several facts should convince Bible believing Southern Baptists who are interested in maintaining—or recovering—the integrity of the SBC that we are fast approaching DEFCON 1 in terms of how fast and far the convention has fallen.
The response to the Covid crisis, 2020 riots, BLM “protests,” governmental tyranny, and violation of religious liberties was in so many ways, abysmal. From Al Mohler’s “Covenant and Commitment” for Southern Seminary and Boyce College employees and students to Danny Akin’s disastrous “How to Shepherd Your Church through Racial Injustice” led by four Southeastern Baptist Seminary faculty to Kevin Ezell’s church planters’ similarly unbiblical assessment of the riots (though it seems NAMB may have removed their video from their website), Southern Baptists were served very poorly by those we employ to give leadership to key institutions and entities.
These are just a few highlights from the last seventeen months. Space does not allow me to elaborate on previous failures like the hiring of a faculty member who has endorsed the damnable Revoice conference or the elevating to seminary Provost of a self-described racist and white supremacist. Nor will I describe the cowardly smear campaign and admission of participation in sexual abuse coverup by Russell Moore (who stayed quiet for months if not years about what he calls “a culture where countless children have been torn to shreds, where women have been raped and then “broken down”) formerly of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
When questions were raised about these events by countless “SBC headquarters” (local churches), SBC elites dismissed or ignored their concerns altogether, scrubbed websites, and accused the pastors of those churches of being troublemakers or otherwise tried to gaslight them. It’s bad enough to be treated this way by those who are supposed to be our leaders. It’s doubly immoral to expect churches to continue to pay those leaders’ salaries as they do so.
Given the disconnect between the elites and rank-and-file Southern Baptists, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the almost complete failure of leadership when Ed Litton’s dishonesty and pulpit plagiarism came to light.
To be sure, I did not vote for Ed Litton to be the SBC president in Nashville. I didn’t like the fact that he claimed that he did not allow women to preach in his church while videos of him and his wife preaching were circulating. I also didn’t like the fact that NAMB (and on at least one occasion, Southwestern Baptist Seminary) sponsored him speaking around the SBC on the campaign trail. For me, those are simple integrity issues.
On June 26, less than two weeks after Litton was elected President of the SBC on the second ballot, I was sent a video clip of Litton’s sermon on Romans 1, along with a sermon by JD Greear on Romans 1. The date on Greear’s sermon indicated that it was preached in January 2019, a year or so before Litton plagiarized it. A comparison of the two was (and still is) bad. Very bad. After watching the video that morning, I sent Ed a letter. I wrote it as a pastor to a pastor. I acknowledged that while there might be an explanation that I simply could not conceive, what he did “looks very bad.” I encouraged him to step away from the demands of ministry long enough to “seek help and encouragement from trusted counselors.”
Those were my thoughts after seeing just the initial plagiarized sermon by Litton. Since then at least half a dozen more have been documented, including one from several years ago where Ed and his wife stole from Tim Keller in one of their joint sermons. There may be many more, but we may never know since Ed removed over 140 of his sermons from the Internet once the scandal broke.
And make no mistake, it is a scandal—scandal of massive proportions. The emperor has no clothes, despite how much certain SBC elitists and those who want Ed to further a progressive agenda try to convince us that he is arrayed in the finest of fabric. Just ask any child. Or think about what answer you will give to the Lord were He to ask you about Ed’s plagiarism on the Day of Judgment.
To my knowledge, only one SBC leader spoke directly against pulpit plagiarism in the immediate aftermath of Litton’s dishonesty being made public. Jason Allen, President of Midwestern Baptist Seminary tweeted this on July 5, 2021.

Re re-preaching other’s sermons, I believe:
One *ought* not preach another’s serm (w/ rare exceptions) even w/ permission & attribution.
One *must* not preach another’s serm w/out permission & attribution.
If this appears to happen, the church’s elders should review & resolve.
— Jason Keith Allen (@jasonkeithallen) July 5, 2021

This is hardly profound but in the presence of the deafening silence of his fellow SBC elites, pastors and churches welcomed it. Al Mohler, who was in an admittedly awkward spot having come in third in the race for the SBC presidency behind Litton and Mike Stone in Nashville, did recently speak on the matter in response to a student question about it. He put it in the context of the widespread practice of pastors using “manufactured sermons.”
There simply is no doubt that this conversation we’re having right now is occasioned by the fact that the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Ed Litton, has been involved to some degree in preaching someone else’s sermon. Beyond that we can see the whole issue of the kind of manufacture of sermons that is now widespread. I would simply have to say that that is precisely not what we are trying to teach or to hold up as an example here.
Again, true enough. But Southern Baptist churches and pastors could wish for the full-throated renunciation of this kind of dishonesty that a younger Mohler gave in 2006. Then, he called pulpit plagiarism “theft” and used unequivocal language to renounce it.
Words are our business, I cannot imagine using someone else’s as my own. It [Plagiarism] is one of the most despicable practices I can imagine… I cannot imagine sitting in the congregation knowing that this guy is simply parroting something he has read, borrowed, or stolen from someone else….He’s not [a preacher] if he is preaching somebody else’s stuff….It is never right to steal [a sermon] and it’s never right to suggest that it’s yours if it’s not….If a comedian stole another comedian’s material he would end up in court.
A simple google search reveals that this kind of plain-spoken assessment of pulpit plagiarism used to be common fare among Bible believing evangelical leaders, including Southern Baptists. Now, however, that we have a serial plagiarist as President of the SBC, our leaders have lost their voices. Or maybe it’s their spines. My guess is that it’s the latter.
So here is where we find ourselves. Southern Baptist Churches are being led by a President who is a confirmed pulpit plagiarist. As I see it, he should resign immediately and seek help from men of integrity who will deal honestly with him in caring for his soul. Ed Litton lacks integrity. He has forfeited any opportunity to lead the SBC effectively.
None of the SBC leaders have issued any kind of direct, public rebuke. None have called for him to resign, though several pastors have done so. Southern Baptists deserve better.
What should such leaders do when confronted with their failure to lead? They should repent and start doing what their constituents rightfully expect them to do. Or, if they refuse, they should resign.
What should churches do when the leaders whose salaries they pay fail to lead? They should call for their leaders to repent or resign. If such leaders are unwilling to respond to these kinds of admonitions from their congregational “headquarters,” then the churches should defund their institutions. If I pay you to guard my house and you stand by while enemies infiltrate at will, don’t expect me to keep you in my employ.
It is a matter of stewardship. I cannot keep count of the SBC churches who have contacted me out of a deep concern over the lack of integrity right now in their convention. Many of them have left or are in the process of leaving the SBC. Some are looking for an alternative—a way to stay Southern Baptist while demanding that the SBC elites quit ignoring simple facts and the expressed concerns of churches.
Here is what needs to happen—and in many places already is happening in churches of all sizes. Churches need to vote to stop sending financial support to those institutions and entities in the SBC whose leaders refuse to lead. Since each agency and institution gets a slice of the money given through the Cooperative Program (CP), this will inevitably mean working around the CP. I take no pleasure in that thought because the CP is an ingenuous mechanism for funding ministries around the world. Churches should determine which SBC entities—if any—they are willing to continue supporting financially. They can then decide to designate to those entities.
From my vantage point, the two entities that I am happy to support are the International Mission Board and the Disaster Relief work through our state convention. I don’t want our international missionaries to suffer for the leadership failures of SBC elites. And Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is second to none. If only half of the 47,000 SBC churches were to escrow or designate their financial gifts in this fashion, the elites would finally be forced to listen. If they are unwilling to confront Ed Litton over his lack of integrity as matter of principle, perhaps they will be motivated to do so as a matter of principal—especially if that principal begins to dry up because they have lost the confidence of the churches whom they serve.
Will this work? Absolutely. Have we reached the point where this course of action is advisable? Sadly, I believe we have. The facts of Ed Litton’s plagiarism are not in dispute. Neither is the God-honoring course of action open to him.
It is foolish to continue financing failed leadership. As long as Ed Litton remains president of the SBC, Southern Baptist leaders are failing. It is past time to hold them accountable.
It’s not complicated. It’s just hard.

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The Power of Your Personal Testimony

By John Piper — 3 years ago

Audio Transcript

In the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, we read a remarkable story of a man born blind who was made to see by the miraculous healing power of Christ. It was the kind of miracle, like so many of them, that could not be kept a secret. Word spread far and wide of what Jesus had done to this young man. But the power players of the day rejected the news. And so we read that

the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age [that is, he’s at least 13 years old]. He will speak for himself.” (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.)

So there’s a power move here, an intimidation factor at play. John continues,

Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He [the healed man] answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:18–25)

“Was blind, but now I see” — a famous line, worked into John Newton’s famous hymn “Amazing Grace.” John 9 is a key chapter in explaining God’s plan for physical disability. But it’s also a key chapter for understanding how we as Christians, changed by the grace of God, can testify of Christ before the world’s most powerful and educated people. Here’s Pastor John to explain.

Here we see the full-blown courage of a beggar — a mere beggar standing up to the most religious, most educated people of the land. And we see here full-blown blasphemy in response to that kind of courage.

Testifying Power

Verse 24: “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” In other words, “Join us in blasphemy, or we’ll excommunicate you out of the synagogue.” That’s not like being excommunicated out of Bethlehem, because do you know what happens if we do discipline on an unrepentant person? They go join another church. In spite of any letter we might send, there are churches of all kinds, and people just move on.

That can’t happen here. When you get kicked out of a synagogue, you get kicked out of Judaism. This is life. This is like being in a Muslim-dominated context. You can’t be there as a Christian. It won’t work. This is huge. Don’t just hear, “We’ll kick you out.” Getting rid of you from the synagogue means you’re out of the community. This is huge, what this man was standing up against.

“A personal testimony trumps arguments when they’re bad arguments — and they’re all bad when they’re against Jesus.”

Verse 25 is his most famous sentence. People all over the world know this sentence, even if they don’t know the Bible: “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” I hope you feel something here. You don’t think of yourself as a theologian and you don’t think of yourself as a scientist, but you’ve got people coming against your faith with every manner of argument — historically, scientifically, experientially. They’re coming against you if you try to be a bold, regular witness.

And I want you to feel the power of this: a personal testimony trumps arguments when they’re bad arguments — and they’re all bad arguments when they’re against Jesus. Don’t be intimidated. This man was way less educated than everybody in all these rooms, and he’d been blind all of his life. And he just simply said with all boldness, “Look, you may know some things I don’t know, but I can see.”

Doctrines of Courage

One of the reasons I teach and preach on the doctrines of grace is because there are so many Christians who don’t know how they got saved, so that they don’t know they have a stunning testimony that they sheer believe. Your belief is a miracle; you didn’t choose it.

Of course, if you have a theology that says, “I did it,” then you’ve got no testimony to the power of God in your life. But at age 6 or 16 or 36, when you saw Jesus as needed and beautiful and sufficient, and you confessed, “I’m a sinner, I need you, I receive you,” a miracle happened. A miracle happened. That’s why these theological things matter.

You can stand up in front of the Senate and say, “I don’t know much about what you guys deal with here. I just know one thing: I was blind once, and now I see the glory of Christ as self-evidencing and compelling, and I will die for him. I’ll stake my life on the truth of what I’ve seen in Jesus.” That’s what you can say. That’s very powerful. It is here. It will come to a point where they can’t handle him anymore. That’s what he said. I hope you’re willing to say it. I hope you have enough understanding to say it, and if you don’t, I hope you study about how you got saved, so that you will know that if you’re saved, you can say it.

Blind Hearts

His courage becomes scorn. Verse 27: “Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Whoa, what are you doing, man? You’re going to get yourself killed. They’re very hostile, of course. Verses 28–29: “They reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’”

Now the controversy has revealed another deceit: They’re not disciples of Moses. They think they are. They’re not, because Jesus said in John 5:46, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” “You don’t know Moses, and you don’t know God. You talk about Moses. You read Moses. You talk about God. You read God’s word. And you don’t know God, because if you knew God and you knew Moses, you’d know me.”

Again, the controversy is revealing what’s really going on in the Jewish leaders’ hearts. Now we are seeing who’s really blind here. They take the first five books of their Bible, and they read them, and they don’t see anything. They’re blind. We’re watching a man whose sight is becoming clearer and clearer and clearer, and whose courage is becoming stronger and stronger, and we’re watching these Pharisees reveal more and more blindness. You don’t want to be a part of that.

Jesus in Pursuit

Jesus and the beggar have a conversation in verses 35–38, after the Jewish leaders cast the beggar out. What makes this conversation so amazingly significant is that Jesus sought him out and found him. Verse 34: “‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” Now, that’s really serious. To whom will he turn when he’s just been cast out of the community? To whom will he turn?

He doesn’t have to turn anywhere. Jesus turns to him. We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Jesus found him. Jesus seeks him. It is no accident that the next chapter is about the Good Shepherd who gathers his sheep. It’s no accident. John knows what he’s doing. He found him. “That’s one of mine. Nobody else wants him right now. I want him.” That’s what I’m praying he’ll do to you in the next five minutes of this sermon. He is after you. He is going to find you. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re there.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. (John 9:35–38)

“Do you confess Christ openly and defend him with your simple testimony, ‘I was blind, and now I see’?”

Then the beggar is gone out of this story. He never says another word. We never see him again. The last thing he does is worship Jesus. I pray that’s the last thing I do. Jesus does the works of God. Jesus is the glory of God. Jesus is to be worshiped. That’s the point of the story. The beggar is blind. He calls Jesus a man. Then he calls Jesus a prophet. Then he defends him at huge risk to his life. And then he worships him after he is found by Jesus.

‘Finally, I Saw’

Jesus came into the world to seek worshipers. That’s why he’s here. Do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony? No big apologetic reasoning. Some of you are called to that, but most of you aren’t. You’re just called to be witnesses. If you see a car hit a person, you can be a witness. You don’t need any education at all.

“I saw” — 95 percent of Christians are saved that way. No big argument — just, “I saw. Finally, I saw. I was reading the Gospels, and I couldn’t resist this man anymore. He was real. He’s real. He’s true. He’s exactly what I need. He’s what the world needs. He’s real. This is not made up. I saw.”

I simply ask, Do you confess him openly and defend him with your simple testimony, “I was blind, and now I see”?

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A Kingdom Without Borders

By Tim Keesee — 3 years ago

The kingdoms and governments of this world have frontiers, which must not be crossed, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ knows no frontier. It never has been kept within bounds.

More than thirty years ago, in the early years of my ministry, I walked from a Berlin train station down a wide chasm that snaked through the city. Until recently, it had been “No Man’s Land.” But now the mines and barbed wire were cleared, and the Berlin Wall lay in heaps. The Iron Curtain was collapsing, mapmakers were busy redrawing borders, and new flags were being stitched.

During these first forays into Eastern Europe, I often laughed in disbelief at the freedom and ironic opportunities for the church. I recall how we published gospel tracts in Moscow using the now-idle presses of the Communist newspaper Pravda (Russian for “Truth”). Pravda had published lies and smeared Soviet Christians for years — but now the presses were turning out the truth of the gospel!

I remember standing in Berlin at what had been the epicenter of the Iron Curtain. Tens of thousands of Christians on both sides of the East-West divide had tried every kind of way to get the gospel over and around and under this wall, but God saw fit to simply tear it down. I fished out a large chunk from the rubble and tucked it into my backpack.

Today, as I pen these lines, the old souvenir sits on a shelf before me. It is a constant reminder of Samuel Zwemer’s words — words that have shaped my thinking, my prayer life, and my expectations in all the years since I stood in the debris of the Wall. Zwemer, a pioneer missionary to Arabia, wrote, “The kingdoms and governments of this world have frontiers, which must not be crossed, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ knows no frontier. It never has been kept within bounds.”

In a few lines, Zwemer captures the power and progress of the gospel and the unmatched authority of our risen King.

No Lines

Most world maps are covered with lines and colors that define country borders — about two hundred countries in the world. The number of nations has quadrupled in the last century. Our maps and our world are filled with lines. But if we could see a map of Christ’s kingdom, there would be no lines, for the citizens of this country are ransomed from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Zwemer captures this power and progress of the gospel to cross every kind of barrier — geographic, ethnic, political, religious. The gospel cannot be contained because it is not a man-made work. It is a Christ-made work. He builds his church in every place to the ends of the world.

“Neither the gates of hell nor the borders of the most God-hating regimes on earth can prevail against Jesus.”

Neither the gates of hell nor the borders of the most God-hating regimes on earth can prevail against Jesus. No countries are closed to Christ. They may be closed to us — either because we can’t get a visa or because our passport is the “kiss-of-death” for gaining entry — but Jesus has never been dependent on our access or resources to accomplish his mission.

Let me give you an example of this border-crossing, gates-of-hell-shattering gospel with what might be the least impressive missionary story you’ve ever read.

Unlikely Missionary

In 1995, a poor farmer named Marah with his wife and child crossed the border of Vietnam into Cambodia. They were driven by hunger and came in search of work. They were Jarai.

Despite being a marginalized minority, the Jarai were a strong and proud people who had long held tenaciously to their hill country lands in central Vietnam. When South Vietnam fell to the Communists, the Jarai lost everything — but the one single thing that Hanoi couldn’t crush or confiscate was the Jarai church. The gospel had first been sown among the Jarai by missionaries during the war. Although numbering just a few hundred believers, after their defeat, God sent a great awakening among the Jarai of Vietnam — and tens of thousands turned to him. One of them was Marah.

This was no easy crossing for this poor family. The Cambodian borderland was known for its minefields and renegade Khmer Rouge soldiers. But hunger and hope are powerful motivators, and Marah knew Jarai people lived in Cambodia. These ethnic cousins, long divided by political and geographic boundaries, shared a common language; so he hoped to find work. But unlike the Jarai of Vietnam, these Jarai had never been reached with the gospel.

Gossip the Gospel

At the village of Som Trawk, Marah looked for work — and he told them about Jesus. Two or three Jarai believed through Marah’s witness. They were the first drops before a downpour. As it was said of first-century Christians, the Jarai of Cambodia “gossiped the gospel” from house to house; and believers numbered over a thousand within a year.

As I said, this is an unimpressive missionary story. No one enacted a grand strategy for reaching the unreached people group: no planning retreats, no funding, no planeloads of short-termers. An unlikely but willing witness simply spoke the name of Jesus to people from an unbroken line of animists and demon worshipers, and the prison bars of their darkness were snapped like a stick by the God who raises the dead. He is the God who “chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:28–29).

The story doesn’t stop there. Twenty years after Marah walked into Som Trawk, I worshiped there with a thriving church. The Jarai have planted other churches and they have also taken the gospel to other people groups in the region. They even began praying and planning to take this every-tribe gospel across the border into Laos.

King of Impossible Places

Zwemer’s observation that the gospel of Jesus Christ “never has been kept within bounds” is anchored in our Lord’s sovereign rule, for he has “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). It is upon this commanding truth that he calls and sends his servants to go and cross cultures and continents to the ends of the earth with his unbound, unhindered gospel.

However, though the gospel is unhindered, its messengers are not. There will be hardships and setbacks. There will be closed doors. But on this point, Zwemer wrote, “Opportunism is not the final word in missions. The open door beckons; the closed door challenges him who has the right to enter.”

“Our King is king over the hard and the impossible places.”

Our King is king over the hard and the impossible places. His saving work is not stopped by borders and bricks and barbed wire. His messengers are to follow him there, too, because in his name they have the right to enter. Whether through a lifetime of faithful ministry or the witness of an untimely grave, the gospel will advance in those places.

Samuel Zwemer’s confidence that the gospel never has been kept within bounds was not crafted in the emotions of a moment but honed in one of the hardest, most neglected places on the planet: Arabia. Today there are still many kingdoms and governments with borders which “must not be crossed.” But no wall made by the hand or heart of man is a match for the King with scars in his hands. His servants, ransomed from many nations, continue to reach the nations with his unbound gospel.

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Twenty Years Later

By Kevin DeYoung — 3 years ago

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years. A few days ago my wife and I were watching one of the 9/11 documentaries with our kids. I found the viewing experience more tense than I expected. I knew what was going to happen, and it was still shocking. For my kids, this was interesting history. For those who can remember that Tuesday twenty years ago–even if we didn’t live in New York City and didn’t lose a loved one–the history can feel awfully present.
I was in my final year at Gordon-Conwell. It was a beautiful morning–sunny, deep blue, not a cloud in the sky. I had an early morning class on that Tuesday. Maybe it was Minor Prophets, something with Hebrew.
The class ended at 9:00am. I made the short walk across campus to my dorm room and picked up the phone. I had to check with my church. Something about a bulletin announcement or the preaching schedule. The church was in between pastors at the time, and I was helping out with the scheduling and some of the preaching. As it turned out, I was glad not to be preaching the next Sunday.
My friend on the phone asked me what I thought about the plane that had just crashed into the Twin Towers. I had no idea what he was talking about. This was 2001. I didn’t own a cell phone. I had no TV in my dorm room. Most of the time I went to the computer lab to check my email. We hung up the phone and I decided to figure out what had happened–probably one of these prop plane accidents. Didn’t John Denver die like that a few years ago?
I walked upstairs to the TV lounge, expecting the room to be quiet. It was a little after 9:00 in the morning. No one would be there. I was half right: the room was completely quiet, but everyone was there. I remember seeing the towers fall. Unreal. Unbelievable.
I remember walking up and down the Holy Hill on campus, praying, thinking, somewhat fearful, knowing that since every flight in the country had been grounded, if I saw a plane in the sky it was very bad news. I remember everyone trying to call home and not getting through. I remember driving the two miles over to Gordon College to pick up my fiance (now my wife) so we could be together. I remember the special prayer service and how we huddled in groups–students, families, professors. Walter Kaiser, David Wells, Doug Stuart–I think they all were there. I remember gathering in the one dorm room with a working TV to watch President Bush, and later Billy Graham. I remember having to pray in chapel later that week and not knowing what to say, except that I should say something from Psalm 46.
I remember how personal the loss was for so many in Boston. I’d flown out of Logan too.
I remember all the American flags–everywhere, on mailboxes, on street corners, in store windows, even in Massachusetts. I remember hearing “I’m Proud to be an American” on the radio and crying instead of laughing. I remember how everything I was looking forward to–graduating, getting married, finding a church–seemed distant and on-hold, like maybe normal would not return, maybe nothing would be the same.
Life would be normal again. As least for most of us. Maybe too normal. Thousands walked into the church again. They didn’t stay. I told myself I would pray for my country every day for the rest of my life. Sadly, I haven’t.
It’s hard to believe that today’s seniors in high school weren’t alive for 9/11. Those just out of college won’t remember anything of the day. Even young people in their 20s or early 30s may only remember the day as something that made for a difficult assembly in school. They may know nothing about Todd Beamer’s “Let’s roll” or President Bush’s “I can hear you” or his opening pitch at Yankee Stadium. That’s bound to happen. I’m sure I don’t know as much about Pearl Harbor as I should. But let’s not allow the memory of twenty years ago to become too distant.
Where were you?
Teach our history. Share your story. Thank God for mercies. Pray, repent, and don’t forget.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

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Twenty Years Later

By Kevin DeYoung — 3 years ago

I was in my final year at Gordon-Conwell. It was a beautiful morning–sunny, deep blue, not a cloud in the sky. I had an early morning class on that Tuesday. Maybe it was Minor Prophets, something with Hebrew I think.
I made the short walk across campus to my dorm room and picked up the phone. I had to check with my church. Something about a bulletin announcement or the preaching schedule. The church was in between pastors at the time, and I was helping out with some of the scheduling and some of the preaching. As it turned out, I was glad not to be preaching the next Sunday.
My friend on the phone asked me what I thought about the plane that had just crashed into the Twin Towers. I had no idea what he was talking about. This was 2001. I didn’t own a cell phone. I had no t.v. in my dorm room. Most of the time I went to the computer lab to check my email. We hung up the phone and I decided to figure out what had happened–probably one of these prop plane accidents. Didn’t John Denver die like that a few years ago?
I walked upstairs to the t.v. lounge, expecting the room to be quiet. It was around 10:00 in the morning. No one would be there. I was half right: the room was completely quiet, but everyone was there. I can’t remember if I saw the first tower fall, but I’m pretty sure I was in the room when the second tower fell. Unreal. Unbelievable.
I remember walking up and down the Holy Hill on campus, praying, thinking, somewhat fearful, knowing that since every flight in the country had been grounded, if I saw a plane in the sky it was very bad news. I remember everyone trying to call home and not getting through. I remember driving the two miles over to Gordon College to pick up my fiance so we could be together. I remember the special prayer service and how honored I was to pray with Peter Kuzmic during that time. I remember gathering in the one dorm room with a working t.v. to watch President Bush, and later Billy Graham. I remember having to pray in chapel later that week and not knowing what to say, except that I should say something from Psalm 46.
I remember how personal the loss was for so many in Boston. I’d flown out of Logan too.
I remember all the American flags–everywhere, on mailboxes, on street corners, in store windows, even in Massachusetts. I remember hearing “I’m Proud to be an American” on the radio and crying instead of laughing. I remember how everything I was looking forward to–graduating, getting married, finding a church–seemed distant and on-hold, like maybe normal would not return, maybe nothing would be the same.
Life would be normal again. As least for most of us. Maybe too normal. Thousands walked into the church again. They didn’t stay. I told myself I would pray for my country every day for the rest of my life. I haven’t.
It’s hard to believe that this year’s freshman class doesn’t remember anything about 9/11. Those arriving at college in the past few weeks were three or four when the Towers fell. Barely out of diapers when the Pentagon was struck. They may know nothing about Todd Beamer’s “Let’s roll” or President Bush’s “I can hear you” or his opening pitch at Yankee Stadium. That’s bound to happen. I’m sure I don’t know as much about Pearl Harbor as I should. But let’s not allow the memory to become too distant.
Where were you?
Teach our history. Share your story. Thank God for mercies. Pray, repent, and don’t forget.

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My New Book Is Out: Knowing and Enjoying God

By Tim Challies — 3 years ago

If you have frequented this site over the years, you have undoubtedly seen some SquareQuotes—the quotes combined with graphics that I release on a daily basis. A couple of years ago Jules Koblun and I had the idea of combining some fresh SquareQuotes with short devotionals. While she got busy with the designing, I got busy with the writing. Before long we had created Knowing and Enjoying God, the first in what we anticipate will be a number of books in the “Words from the Wise” series.

Knowing and Enjoying God is a series of 101 quotes from Christian authors, with each quote accompanied by a beautiful graphic and a short devotional. The book’s theme is the means of grace (or, if you prefer, spiritual disciplines). We cover the themes of prayer, Bible reading, meditation, worship, ordinances, gratitude, stewardship, and more. All of the quote graphics are original, by which I mean that I have not shared them through social media in the past.
My hope for the book is that it will both edify and encourage–that it will teach readers about the privilege it is to know God and that it will encourage readers to pursue him all the more. I hope it will be a valuable resource for those who may need a short burst of encouragement to strengthen and equip them in the Christian life. I hope it will be as valuable to seasoned believers as to very new ones. And I hope it will also prove suitable as a book to hand an unbeliever to perhaps help them see the beauty of Jesus Christ and the joy that comes to those of us who know him as a friend knows a friend.
The book is available from all the usual retailers in both hardcover and e-book formats, including Amazon and Westminster Books.
Here are a few early reviews:

I hope you will give it a look!
(Long-term readers may be interested to know how this book fits into the timeline of my life. I completed writing it and doing a first round of edits just prior to Nick’s death; final editing took place a couple of months after.)

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A La Carte (September 8)

By Tim Challies — 3 years ago

The Lord bless and keep you today.

(Yesterday on the blog: What Can God Do With Broken Hearts?)
Turning Toward Light
Andrea Sanborn: “Pessimism is my soul’s default setting. Even when life is filled with blessing, melancholy has always been my temperament’s natural course. As a result, it has been the work of my Christian life to turn away from the darkness and look up, look away, notice beauty and give thanks. ”
Pray for Jennifer
I frequently link to Jennifer Myhre’s blog. (You may know her from her excellent books for kids where she is credited as J.A. Myhre). Her husband recently posted on it that she was in a terrible accident and is in need of prayer.
Kanye the Pious
I found this an interesting look at Kanye, his new album, and his critics. “If you were to read half-a-dozen reviews of Kanye West’s latest album, Donda — and I recommend that you don’t —you would learn chiefly that West is a bad person. He’s a bad person for associating with social undesirables; he’s a bad person for supporting Donald Trump; he’s a bad person for hosting album release parties; he’s a bad person because he’s a navel-gazing egomaniac with suspect spirituality; he’s even a bad person for learning how to value women from his experience of having daughters.”
The Roman Catholic Call to Confusion
Keith Mathison: “What Protestants should understand is that once a person accepts the philosophical principles of skepticism, there is no certainty anywhere, and the choice to convert to Roman Catholicism can no longer possibly be a rational choice. At best it can only be an irrational leap of faith, but that leap has no more rational grounds than any other leap – be it into Mormonism or the cult of Jim Jones. The Kool-Aid is the same.”
A Critical Theorist Worth Reading
I benefitted from reading Carl Trueman’s review of a book by a critical theorist.
God Cares for Every Christian More than You Know
I expect that many of us could use this reminder. “When we think of others in the Christian community, we are to realise that we are like little children. We are all dependant on God for our salvation. Even the most capable and respected among us are forgiven sinners, so we need to view others in the church as our brothers and sisters, our equals in God’s sight.”
Flashback: What’s the Purpose of … Marriage?
The highest purpose of marriage is to display to the world the sacrificial love of Christ for his bride, the church.

…the battle for our Sundays is usually won or lost on the foregoing Saturday night, when time should be set aside for self-examination, confession and prayer for the coming day. —J.I. Packer

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The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Space

By Tim Challies — 3 years ago

If the human instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are strong and mighty, impressive and successful, God’s instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are weak and lowly, who are meek and merciful.

Back in the 1950s, humanity entered into a great age of space exploration as the United States and the Soviet Union battled to be first to the moon. It seems to me that we are now entering into a second great age of space exploration as billionaires battle it out to see who can be first to establish a permanent outpost in space.
We don’t need to push our minds too hard to imagine a scenario in which one of these billionaires announces he is establishing a new nation somewhere beyond earth. We might imagine him making an announcement and saying, “This world is falling apart, the earth is collapsing under the weight of war and epidemic and pollution, so we are going to start over. We are putting out the call to help create Humanity 2.0. Join me as I found the Kingdom of Space.”
The billionaire who is founding this state might explain something like this: “This new nation will be better and greater than any nation or any civilization in the whole history of mankind. Because we are going to recreate humanity, we need to ensure we bring along only the best of the best—only the sharpest minds, only the most impressive personalities, only the most beautiful bodies, only the most accomplished individuals. We need the wise, the winsome, the winners, the well-to-do so together we can fulfill our potential and become all humanity can be. Come to me all who are mighty and self-sufficient. Bring in the rich and the beautiful, the impressive and the accomplished.”
Jesus, too, has founded a kingdom—the kingdom of heaven—and his kingdom could hardly be more different. It’s a kingdom where the call goes out to the low instead of the high. Its king says “come to me all who are weary and heavy laden,” and “bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” But even that’s not enough. He sends his emissaries to the halfway houses and drop-in centers and group homes and says, “Bring them all in!” If the human instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are strong and mighty, impressive and successful, God’s instinct is to build a kingdom upon those who are weak and lowly, who are meek and merciful.
Keeping these two perspectives in mind, let me present you with two different visions for humanity. Let’s imagine now that our billionaire is ready to blast off to begin his Kingdom of Space. He has chosen the cream of the human crop to accompany him, and now together they are parading toward the great ship will that take them to their new nation.
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