The Aquila Report Archives - Page 13 of 942

Gone Are the Dark Clouds

By Timarie Friesen — 4 months ago

The gospel allows us to know the God of the universe because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection—but it takes courage to explain. Specifically, courage to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. The gospel must include the larger story of why we rebels need good news granted solely through Christ Jesus.

My dad left his girlfriend’s apartment, confused by the sudden breakup. She had a newfound faith. He thought Christians were deluded. Their Bible reading baffled him. A world-wide flood and Noah’s Ark? he scoffed. Yet when alone on a Halloween night in 1973, he ventured into the light of a church service and took a seat.
The following morning, my dad heard the Johnny Nash song, “I Can See Clearly Now.” He hummed along to the line, “Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind,” and credited God for lifting the cloud of unbelief—for setting his gaze on Christ.
Had the preacher spoken without highlighting the actual message of the gospel, my dad would not have this story to tell, as he often does.
I thought of his experience as I read through J.I. Packer’s Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Packer writes, “There is no evangelism when this specific message is not declared” (45). To explain the “specific message”—the gospel in its entirety—courage must overcome timidity (Rom. 1:16; 2 Tim. 1:7).
In what sense? “The world is full of people who are unaware they stand under the wrath of God,” Packer writes (97). God, our Creator, is fully good, as is his creation, but our condition was altered after the fall. We are born rebels—condemned and separated from God. Yet in hopeless depravity we are met with good news (John 3:17). Good news for everyone—news too good not to share.
Jesus told his disciples to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to prepare people for the good news (Luke 24:47). Perhaps it seemed too large a task as they pondered the risen Jesus and the hostile people who recently crucified him. Could they do what Jesus asked? They did. The book of Acts shows the Christian faith flourishing as disciples related the message Jesus commissioned.
The word “evangelism” in its Greek form derives from the term “to publish the good news.” Thus evangelism must entail the full story—creation, fall, redemption through Jesus’s life, death, resurrection—and the beautiful grace that allows us to respond to God who loves his creation.
If communicating the gospel appears daunting, remember that Christ commissions and accompanies us. Through Jesus’s work on the cross we are reconciled to God, not abandoned. We can talk about this with genuine care and love for people.
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Shifting Sands and Stable Hope

By Aaron Edwards — 4 months ago

We hope, pray, and preach that out of our present chaos, many will find their way not merely to a forgotten cultural heritage carved into the side of the rock, but to the rock itself. As Spurgeon famously said: “Oh blessed hurricane, that drives me to the rock of ages.”

So much has changed, so many opinions altered, so many illusions undone, so many institutions exposed, so many alliances broken and made. The old certainties have shifted. So many people now say and do things they could not have imagined saying or doing before, both for good and for ill. And all in such a short space of time…
Does anyone else feel like the last half-decade feels longer than several decades put together?
So much has happened in the social and political and religious spheres, it’s hard to believe it fits into less than half a decade. The consequences of all that has been crammed into these historic years will likely remain imprinted upon us for decades to come.
So much has changed. So many opinions altered. So many illusions undone. So many institutions exposed. So many alliances broken and forged. So many people moved to say or do things they previously could not have imagined saying or doing before. And all in such a short space of time. All experienced so fast, as if we’re sat on a train watching the world we knew speed past us.
Rarely do we have sufficient time to reflect and take stock because as soon as something has happened or been spoken about, there are already several other paradigm-changing things apparently demanding our immediate attention or interpretation.
If someone was in a coma for four years they would think they had woken up to a new world altogether, where so many of the previously reliable “certainties” have been substantively and irreparably undermined. Things just don’t work the way they used to anymore. You can try to ignore it, but the world—and the way people think and talk about it—is nonetheless changing the way it’s changing.
Historians will surely analyse this as a time which substantially shaped the course of the next half-century at least, one way or another. There are, of course, noted parallels between the digital revolution (and its effects on the socio-political world) and the impact of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution.
But it’s not merely an issue of technological innovation and access to information. It’s also a revolution in how people think and act (no doubt in part due to the way people’s minds have been shaped by the digital revolution). But unlike many modern political revolutions, the revolution of thought we are currently experiencing also involves people returning to older ideas which they did not know they were “allowed” to think about.
The Changing of the Ground
There is a creaking in the floorboards of what we thought we knew, of what we thought was not ok to say or do. The pull is in both directions. As the liberal elites become more progressively intoxicated with their empowered derangements, those who see the poverty of their thinking began to realise that even the ground on which they were holding firm was already indirectly “held” by the progressives.
Gradually and imperceptibly, we had already begun to contribute to the downfall and were heading in the same direction, albeit at a slower pace. We had already given away too much ground, and much of the ground we thought needed defending was already compromised as it was.
However you describe it—whether via the effects of the “red pill” movement or the reactions to the societal forest fire that is “Woke”—for many people it now feels impossible to go back to talking the way we did about socio-politics, theology, mission the way we did even half a decade ago. Things have changed.
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Outsourcing Discernment in an Age of Mass Information

By John Stonestreet and Timothy D Padgett — 4 months ago

How can we possibly make sense of news firing at us all the time and from every direction? The answer is, we don’t. In fact, many don’t even try. We prefer our “news” pre-digested and delivered to our feeds. In other words, we have outsourced the hard work of discernment to others.

Elon Musk recently found himself fighting the government of Brazil after his X social media platform was briefly banned there. Ironically, the censorship was marketed as a defense of democracy, i.e. the government “graciously” stepping in to save the people and the voting process from harmful disinformation.
Of course, claims of disinformation is a common tactic often employed by the powerful to silence critics. Once limits are placed on what can be written and spoken, many other liberties are at risk. Indeed, there are real dangers of an unchecked flood of information, too. In the introduction to Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman described this tension by comparing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984:
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
In the end, the explosion of information everywhere, all the time, has made us believe everything and nothing at all.
And our reputation precedes us. There’s been understandable concern about Russian interference in the last few U.S. Elections, but their strategy reveals as much about us as it does them. Imagine a group of operatives from Moscow planning and scheming how to dismantle America, and finally one of them announces, “I’ve got it! Memes! We’ll use memes to interfere with their democracy.”
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Yearning for Heaven: Shifting Our Paradigm

By Tim Thorburn — 4 months ago

I share Cole’s desire that we live with eager expectation, longing for our resurrection into the age to come in the new heaven and the new earth (Rev 21:1). But Cole’s pervasive language of ‘heaven’ often confused me. Although he acknowledges our ultimate future is resurrected bodies in a new creation (13–14), he usually refers to that future state as ‘heaven’. He seems unaware of people like NT Wright emphasising that the Christian eschatological hope is not ‘going to heaven when you die’, but resurrection to real physical life when Christ returns.

Why is my generation of Christians often spiritually tepid and languid? Why can we be indistinguishable from the secular people around us? Cameron Cole has the answer—we are too earthly minded, with little or no yearning for heaven. We need to shift our paradigm. In his words, ‘most Christians live with very little awareness of their eternal trajectory’, and as a consequence our service to Christ feels ‘routine and obligatory’, ‘blah or meh’ (2).
He is not the first to make such a diagnosis. I remember as a young adult hearing Don Carson remark that western Christianity lacks clear and substantial hope—we live in and for the present age. And I live in a location on this spinning globe where it feels like heaven on earth is within touching distance, often to our loss.
Cole admits that he was deeply infected by this same disease until the accidental death of his 3-year-old son. This tragic event prompted a deep and ongoing reflection on the reality and significance of heaven, not just for his son, but for his own life and faith. This gives Heavenward a strong personal tone as Cole shares his own pain and growing hope.
Christ-Centred Heaven
I resonate with Cole’s diagnosis of the malaise that infects our Christianity. I too perceive that myself and my western co-heirs with Christ often have minimal day-to-day hope in life eternal, but are heavily earth-focussed. It needs to change. As an added point, we would do well to imitate our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world whose longing for Christ’s return is palpable.
His vision of heaven is Christ-centred. Heaven is wonderful because of the presence of Jesus, reigning in glory. Cole does mention other aspects of the future, but these are rightly overshadowed by the prospect of knowing Christ, even as we are already known.
He grounds his encouragement to be heavenly minded in rich biblical theology, drawn mainly from the Apostle Paul. The central section of the book (chapters 3–7) track Paul’s teaching on the present experience of heavenly realities brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Bravo! These hopes are not an exaggeration or speculative fantasy.
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The Depth of Our Depravity

By Bill Ellif — 4 months ago

We were created to live in dependency upon God. This was not added because of man’s fall. It was how we were designed so that we would forever live in union with our Creator. Our sin explains why we are separated from God, and our separation from God explains our continuing, increasing sin. Without Him in our lives, we are “dead in our trespasses and sin” and have no capacity for godliness.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)
How sinful are we? The answer is: totally. Apart from God and His intervention in our lives, we are completely and totally spiritually depraved.
Noah’s Day
… proved it in bold relief. Mankind had been separated from God’s presence because of their sin for ten generations, and the result was decades of ever-increasing evil. Finally, we come to Noah’s day, and we have recorded the assessment of mankind written above: “Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Lest we think this is just an Old Testament phenomenon, listen to Paul’s description of every man in Romans, Chapter 3.
10 “There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.”
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A Biblical Case for the Christian Principles of Voting

By Ray E. Heiple Jr. — 4 months ago

Written by Ray E. Heiple Jr. |
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Wherever there is a choice between candidates, where one of those candidates, if elected, will clearly do more to uphold the moral law of God to protect the good and punish evil, you have a moral obligation before God to vote for that candidate. That is how you exercise your God-given authoritative position as voter, to protect the good and punish the evil. It does not matter which candidate you like more, which one looks or sounds more like you, which one will make your life easier in some way, which one acts nicer or friendlier, which one the newscasters like more, or anything else.

…that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence (1 Tim. 2:2b).
Christians are required to keep the moral law. Jesus said repeatedly “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, 23; 15:10). The moral law declares the difference between good and evil. Good and evil are objective realities that are the same for all people, places, and times. Good and evil do not change because God does not change, and man does not change. The moral law is equally obligatory on all human beings because all human beings are equally and unchangeably created in the image of God. The summary of the moral law is the Ten Commandments. The summary of the Ten Commandments is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Every moral law: every good and every evil; can ultimately be placed under these two commands: love God and love your neighbor. Every evil ultimately breaks one of these two laws, every good ultimately keeps them.
The idea of law inherently includes authority. Authority is coercive power. Government is the imposition of some amount of authority given to some humans to exercise over others. Human governments are instituted—according to the will of God—to keep the moral law. They have authority from God for this and no other purpose. Scripture states that every authority figure is God’s minister for good (Rom. 13:4). God gives humans authority over other humans to protect the good and to punish the evildoer (Rom. 13:3; WCF 23:1). This is true of all human governments. The authority of parents, teachers, elders, contractors, employers, HR departments, army officers, civil magistrates, judges, baseball umpires, presidents, and babysitters is given solely for this and no other purpose: to protect the good and to punish the evil, or to say it another way, to uphold the moral law. To whatever degree authorities do not uphold the moral law they are abusing or being derelict in their duties.
Therefore, everyone in authority is accountable to God to do what they can, according to their power and position, to uphold the moral law of God. There are no other grounds for one person to have authority over another. Because all human beings are equally human, equally made in the image of God, no one person is born having inherent authority over another person, for there are no grounds for it when we consider human nature simply and exclusively. Now when we take into account additional factors beyond human nature, like relationships such as between children and parents, then we have a basis on which to subject one—children, to the rule of another—parents, which is good and right considering the origin and dependence of children on parents for everything. However, because that authority is relational and not according to some natural inequality, once children are adults, parents naturally lose their position of authority over them. However, while they are in authority over them, parents are accountable to God to exercise their authority to protect and promote the good and to punish the evil actions of their children. The relationship of parents to children makes this responsibility inescapable.
Similarly, every legal American citizen, not currently incarcerated or in some way incapacitated, is by way of relationship to this country in a position of authority for which he or she is accountable to God: to promote and protect the good and to punish the evil behavior of everyone under this nation’s government. The United States’ Constitution is the highest human authority in this nation. And according to that constitution, those in positions of authority are put there by the authoritative election of the citizenry. Therefore Romans 13 applies directly to you as you exercise your authority by voting. Wherever there is a choice between candidates, where one of those candidates, if elected, will clearly do more to uphold the moral law of God to protect the good and punish evil, you have a moral obligation before God to vote for that candidate. That is how you exercise your God-given authoritative position as voter, to protect the good and punish the evil. It does not matter which candidate you like more, which one looks or sounds more like you, which one will make your life easier in some way, which one acts nicer or friendlier, which one the newscasters like more, or anything else. The only thing that matters, accordingly to your moral obligation before God to do whatever you can with your God-given authority to protect good and punish evil, is which candidate will actually do that when elected? Which candidate will do more to punish evil and protect the good as these categories are defined by the word of God?
To NOT vote according to this one question is to be derelict or abusive in the authority you have as a voter. Now no one exercises authority perfectly: no parent, police officer, professor, or president. But when you are in any of these or other positions of authority, you are obligated, in every instance, to do what is most good and least evil. Consequently, when you are in the authoritative position of voter, you are obligated by the authority of your position, to put people into government (authoritative) offices who will exercise their authority most in accordance with this same law of God, which binds and is the reason for all authority. So, if in the providence of God there are only two persons who can realistically be elected president, and one of them would clearly do more to protect the good and punish evil, you must vote for that person. It does not matter that both of those persons are seriously flawed, have done bad things, or have other checks against them. If in the providence of God, one of them will be running this country, and if by that same providence you have been given the great authority, privilege, and sober responsibility of choosing which one, you must not be derelict in your duty, you must not rebel against God because you don’t like the two choices He has sovereignly put before you. You must vote for the one who you have sound reasons to believe will better do his duty to protect the good and punish the evil doer. If you can see a difference between them according to this ultimate standard, then to not vote, or to vote for neither of the only two who can win, is to abuse and misuse the authority of voter, that God has graciously given to you. If one of them will clearly do better, or to say it another way, if one of them will clearly do LESS EVIL, then to not vote for that one is to not faithfully exercise your authority of voter, and the reason for which you have been given it, in accordance with the will and word of God.
Now, is there a discernable difference between the only two candidates who at this date can realistically be elected president, according to the raison d’être of all authorities: punishing the evil and protecting the good? It seems to me on clear moral issues like abortion, sexual immorality, and the monstrous evils of the transgender movement, which has been pushing their views into elementary schools, that the choice is as clear and obvious as night and day. Right now, all over this country, public school children in fifth grade and even earlier are being shown videos and other materials encouraging them to consider sinful and harmful views of sexual orientation, gender identity, masturbation, and other related evils. Increasingly, parents across America are not being told that their children have, through the manipulation and indoctrination of transgenderism, “identified” as something other than the boy or girl that they genetically and unchangeably are. Claims of schools providing powerful hormones and puberty blockers to pre-pubescent children without parental consent are on the rise. As are alleged instances where children have been taken from their parents for not going along with their child’s new “gender identity,” and all of the Dr. Frankenstein procedures “experts” and authorities are saying are necessary to keep one’s child from suicide: including permanent sterilization, maiming, and disfiguring. Can there be a more significant issue than this? Would anyone seriously set disputed and questionable issues—like policies of welfare, immigration, and climate change with all of their complexities, possibilities, and wide-ranging consequences and details, on which experts continually disagree and so-called solutions are regularly proven wrong—alongside of promoting, practicing, and legally protecting the maiming and sterilizing of otherwise healthy children? On these life and death issues, on these issues directly addressed by the Bible, there is a clear as day choice. One candidate and one party celebrate transgenderism and is seeking to mandate “gender-affirming care” in schools, hospitals, and everywhere else. The other candidate and party are trying to protect parental rights and consent for their children, and employees’ rights to dissent from and opt out of transgender-promoting activities without losing their jobs. You have been entrusted with authority from God to vote for one of these candidates. You will answer for how you wielded that authority according to God’s one and only standard for all authority: protecting the good-doer and punishing the evil-doer. Now what will you do?
Ray E. Heiple Jr. is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Senior Pastor of Providence PCA in Robinson Twp., PA

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On Humility

By Bill Muehlenberg — 4 months ago

As William Law (1698-1761), the English author of A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life once put it: “Humility is nothing else but a right judgment of ourselves.” That’s it. True humility is knowing who we really are, in the light of knowing God as he really is. Not only that, but when we contemplate Christ and his work, that too can only lead us to humbling ourselves and getting on our knees before him.

I make no claim to being a paragon of Christian virtues, including the virtue of humility. So as usual, I am writing a piece like this as much for myself as for anyone else. And I will say it at the outset: please pray for me in this regard. I have a long way to go in reflecting real biblical humility – and in eschewing carnal pride.
But I can perhaps say a few words about this matter. Sadly, most of us have known Christians, including too many Christian leaders, who may lack in basic humility, love and grace. They can be rather full of themselves, they can be proud, they can look down on others, they can be condescending, and so on.
And this might especially be true of those who are more intellectually inclined, be they teachers or writers or theologians or academics or scholars. Great learning need not make one proud, but often it can lead in that direction. So care must be taken here. And again, since I tend to be rather cerebral, I too certainly need to be on guard here.
Like you, I have experienced some of these folks who seem to have little time for me, as they busy themselves in their academic pursuits. They can ignore you or slight you and make you feel like you are a nobody. But on the other hand, I have also known some very bright and very-well known Christian leaders and scholars who have been quite the opposite.
They will take time out of their busy schedules to acknowledge me or reply to me or even thank me for something. This has happened to me at times when I write a book review of some well-known and distinguished author for example. Sometimes they will respond to me on the social media or on my own website and thank me for my review and say a few kind words.
So being full of ‘smarts’ does not of necessity mean you will become proud, aloof, arrogant and out of touch with the mere masses. But too often this can be the case. So let me speak to this a bit more, including looking at what steps we might take to ensure this is not the case in our own lives.
On Humbling Ourselves
Scripture of course often speaks about humility, and its opposite, pride. I want to draw upon just one passage here, James 4:10. It says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” One major question I at least want answered is this: How do I humble myself?
Again, while not claiming to be an expert in this area, I can offer a few worthwhile answers. It was John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion who famously spoke of the need for a proper basis of all true knowledge: the knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.
And in that order. As we begin to know God as he really is, that cannot but help impact us and help us to see ourselves more truly and more accurately. As we get more and more genuine knowledge and understanding of God and self, the only real result should be for us to be humbled.
How can we not become humble as we contemplate who God really is in all his majesty and greatness and holiness and purity and perfection?
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Natural Disaster and Pastoral Comfort

By Jim Elliff — 4 months ago

God intends either discipline or testing by what is suffered, and both produce the good of improved sanctification.[29] We are not allowed to take “natural calamity” out of that package of necessary suffering for the believer. God in His providential care designs the calamity as a blessing in sometimes macabre dress. We are to “consider it all joy . . . when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”[30] Suffering is a foundational aspect of sanctification.

We must acknowledge that the most troubling problem emerging from any large scale natural disaster is not that people die. That is a real human and emotional issue, but not the most significant one. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, tornados or floods do not change the statistics on the number of the human race experiencing death by even one digit. A typhoon in Bangladesh swept away between 300,000 and 500,000 lives in 1970,[1] and the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918 exterminated between 50,000,000 and 100,000,000,[2] but neither of these catastrophic events changes the grim prognosis that every member of the human race will die. We are dying at a hundred percent rate already.
It is also not the overarching dilemma that natural events destroy what we have made—our homes, buildings, roads, etc. No one should be surprised when a house or building is brought to nothing in a mudslide in view of the fact that God declares that decay will eventually destroy all things anyway.[3] We are promised the cataclysmic destruction of the entire earth as we know it in the future.[4] Some have lost these things earlier than they had hoped they would, but that they would be destroyed should never be in debate with evangelicals. So there is nothing new here either.
Furthermore, it should not be a conundrum to us that many people face an alteration of their existence due to catastrophe. A new order will come to everyone eventually; heaven and a new earth will be experienced by some[5], and hell for others. Death alters everything, as will Christ’s return.
We should also remember that there is no meaningful dissimilarity in the horribleness of death in a natural disaster as opposed to normal times. If it were possible to ask a man in the sanitary environment of a hospital what it is like to breathe his last breath when he is drowning in his own fluid, he would tell you it is every bit as horrific as being drowned in a flood. Because God mercifully allows the body to experience shock in times of fright, many will thankfully have some anesthesia when they die, whether natural or narcotic. But death is still a ravaging enemy wherever and however it is encountered. Some may linger in the hospital room for days before they die, while others under the rubble caused by an earthquake painfully expire from dehydration. A woman may die instantly when a hurricane pushes her house down, while her sister may end her two year struggle with an insidious malignancy with screams. Which is easier?
Everyone will die; everyone will lose whatever they have; everyone will face a completely altered existence; everyone will experience the horror of last moments on earth. We have already bought into all of these as theological verities. So what is so arrestingly unique about a natural disaster? Why do we become poetic and communicative about it? Why do we not hear news commentators saying, “Today an earthquake in India did the normal: It took a few thousand lives, destroyed property, took people to another existence and did it in the typically horrible way. The stock market was up today with heavy volume . . .”
We are alarmed because a natural disaster brings dramatic focus to these universal inevitabilities. It paints them in vivid color right before our faces so that we cannot escape them. We see how impotent we are. Our invincibility evaporates; our vulnerability parades in front of us and mocks us. We watch as people just like us, going about their business, lose everything and die in a moment. It grabs us precisely because it is us we are hearing about. Natural disaster is not about something new happening, or even about something unusual happening, but about something that has always happened and is inescapable for each of us—and more precisely, for me.
All death and destruction comes from the most cataclysmic event of history, the fall of man, and from the resulting just judgment of God.e[6] Our natural world groans under the resultant bondage.e[7] Believers, of all people, should learn to reconcile themselves to this fact. One pastor was reminded by God after the loss by flood of all his awards and letters from important people not to be concerned. Reportedly God said to him, “Don’t worry . . . I was going to burn them anyway.” Whether he heard these words directly or not, the sentiment was true.[8]
The certainty that death, decay, and destruction are going to happen anyway to all of us and to all of our things, however, does not eradicate the internal pain that believers may experience. Even Christ, who said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” was “distressed and troubled,” and “deeply grieved, to the point of death” by the weight of sin placed on Him. With perfect knowledge and absolute trust, He still worked out His peace with the cross on Gethsemane. Granted, His was an infinitely bigger burden than ours, but there is surely a lesson here.
Some of the greatest of saints have also been depressed about losses or disruptions (David, Elijah, Spurgeon, and Martin Lloyd Jones, etc.). Ongoing emotional troubles remind us that disaster of any sort is often an immense trial, spinning off secondary disasters, like hurricanes spin off tornadoes, even among believers. If this is so, we more-average saints must have much aid in understanding and coping with natural disaster when it affects us or those we love dearly. What can help?
When disaster occurs, the mental/emotional state of the believer is directly bound to his spiritual perception. Ultimately, and often immediately, believers can overcome a debilitating freefall into anxiety over what has transpired. It becomes the pastoral job to not only empathize, but to lead believers to have a biblical perspective about disaster and loss as soon as possible—preferably prior to the event occurring. It is concerning this perspective that I wish to direct our attention.
Nature Obeys God
The disciples said of Jesus, “. . . even the winds and the sea obey Him?”[9] This verse is often employed apologetically with skeptics for the purpose of proving that Jesus is actually God. The believing world has almost always asserted, in pacific times, that God controls nature. The farmer prays to God for rain for his dry fields, just as the Christian school teacher requests from God clear skies for the class picnic, because we assume that God has everything to do with it. But does this general, almost presupposed evangelical belief extend far enough when times are more difficult?
As an illustration of how God’s oversight of nature may be addressed, the Second London Baptist Confession clarifies the extent of God’s control in its first and second under “Divine Providence.” It is worth a careful reading:

God who, in infinite power and wisdom, has created all things, upholds, directs, controls and governs them, both animate and inanimate, great and small, by a providence supremely wise and holy, and in accordance with His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable decisions of His will. He fulfils the purposes for which He created them, so that His wisdom, power and justice, together with His infinite goodness and mercy, might be praised and glorified. (Job 38:11; Ps. 135:6; Isa. 46:10,11; Matt. 10:29-31; Eph. 1:11; Heb. 1:3)
Nothing happens by chance or outside the sphere of God’s providence. As God is the First Cause of all events, they happen immutably and infallibly according to His foreknowledge and decree, to which they stand related. Yet by His providence God so controls them, that second causes, operating either as fixed laws, or freely or in dependence upon other causes, play their part in bringing them about. (Gen. 8:22; Prov. 16:33; Acts 2:23)[10]

This historic confession has not overstated the biblical principle. The Psalmist speaks convincingly concerning the control of God over natural events:
Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightening for the rain; He brings the wind out of His treasuries.[11]
It was God who ordained each of the natural plagues on Egypt, for instance, including turning water to blood, filling the land with frogs, sending hail, and devastating locusts. Even Pharoah recognized this.[12]
Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt.[13]
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Godly Parenting as a Witness to the World

By Brian Cosby — 4 months ago

The Apostle Paul writes, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Both the negative (discipline) and the positive (instruction) are in view here. Disciplining and teaching children involve more than just passing on biblical knowledge or enforcing rules. It means shaping their character and helping them to delight in the Word of God.

The Bible offers numerous instructions on how parents should raise their children, guiding them not only to live moral and upright lives but also to understand and embrace their identity within the home, church, and state. But godly parenting is also a witness to the watching world and is a distinguishing characteristic between those who belong to God and those who do not.
The Covenantal Context
One of the key distinctives of godly parenting is that its foundation is the bound relationship God has with His people, known in Scripture as covenant. The covenantal context emphasizes that raising children is not just about instilling good behavior, but about nurturing them in the fear and knowledge of the Lord so they can grow into their role as participants in God’s ongoing story of redemption. In the Bible, a covenant is more than just a contract; it’s a bound relationship between God and His people with both promises and obligations.
When parents realize that they are raising covenant children—children who are part of God’s covenant community—they understand that their parenting has a purpose beyond mere survival or success in this world. They are raising children who are meant to live in relationship with God, embracing the promises He has made to His people, and fulfilling their calling as children of the covenant.
Godly Parenting
“Godly” parenting assumes that the parents are believing, thinking, and living in such a way that reflects God’s will for them as revealed in His Word. They are marked by the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23) and are fulfilling their role as parents according to the precepts and commands of Scripture. Deuteronomy 6:4–7 states:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
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The Uncarnation of Christ?

By J.A. Medders — 4 months ago

Written by J.A. Medders |
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
We need the truth about Jesus, but not without Jesus himself. Who would ever settle for accuracies of a friend and yet never experience friendship? Systematic theology, which we love, doesn’t love us in return. But Jesus loves us. The doctrine of the virgin birth cannot comfort us when the news of cancer hits home—but the one born of the virgin will. Do you see the difference? Francis Schaeffer put it this way, “Doctrine is important, but it is not an end in itself. There is to be an experiential reality, moment by moment.” A real Jesus really matters.

One of the devil’s greatest ploys is to distance us from the realness of Jesus. While heresy is a handy tool for the evil one, an orthodoxy wielded and tilted at the wrong angle can also do his work.
Doctrine is vital to the Christian life. I must state that upfront for the sake of everything else I’m about to say, lest I’m misread. We can never diminish or dilute the importance of sound doctrine. My concern is when our theology never rises above the ink set on the page. I want to warn us about doing theology in a way that depersonalizes our Lord. Any approach to doctrine that dehumanizes Jesus of Nazareth is deadly to our spirituality.
If our understanding of eternal sonship, substitutionary atonement, Christus Victor, resurrection, and the lot are only seen as sentences and standards to maintain, we are lost at night in the snowy mountains. It’s dangerous. We need to stay near the light, the path, and the 98.6 degrees of warmth of Christ’s risen body. Never lose the realness of Jesus.
My spirituality changed forever when it hit me in a fresh way that Jesus is more than doctrinal data to affirm. He is a real person. Human. Not a theory or mythology. Jesus is a Jewish man. He is incarnate—Son of God, now in human flesh. He has the features—hair, facial construction, build, accent, etc.—of an Israelite born in the first century and grew up in Nazareth. Today, he sits on the throne, reigning over the universe, loving, leading, interceding, and caring for his people. He is drawing people to himself, too. I know this seems elementary—it’s not. It’s everyday Christianity.
Our flesh and the devil are happy to uncarnate Christ—to reduce him to doctrinal points we affirm and then ignore him. But spiritual theology rejoices over Christ—his person and work—as our divine and personal Savior, Lord, and Friend.
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