Even the sweetest commands from our King are still commands. We may be tempted to view commands such as “Do not kill” as more weighty than the command “Look unto Christ.” But both are spoken from the same authority, God himself. Therefore, they are worthy of the same attention, effort, and obedience.
For the next few weeks, we will be discussing the command to look unto Jesus. There are several passages that state this command, each in a different way. But it is a theme of both the Old and the New Testaments. For this week’s episode, Dr. John Snyder and Teddy James are getting help from a journal entry written in 1773 by John Newton. Many of you will know Newton as the author of “Amazing Grace,” among other hymns. But the particular journal entry we are resourcing in this week’s episode reads:
This is the Ninth New Years day I have seen in this place. I have reason to say, The Lord crowneth every year with his goodness. The entrance of this finds me and my _ [dear Mary] in health and peace. I am still favoured with strength, and with some liberty for my public work and hope the Lord is still pleased to work by me, for the edification of his people already called, and the awakening of sinners. As to myself, It is given me to trust in the Lord Jesus for life and salvation – I know he is both willing and able to save. Upon him as an All-sufficient Saviour and upon his word of promise I build my hope, believing that he will not suffer me to be put to shame. My exercise of grace is faint, my consolations small, my heart is full of evil, my chief sensible burdens are, a wild ungoverned imagination, and a strange sinful backwardness to reading the Scriptures, and, to secret prayer. These have been my complaints for many years, and I have no less cause of complaint than formerly. But my eye and my heart is to Jesus. His I am, him I desire to serve, to him I this day would devote and surrender myself anew. O Lord, accept, support, protect, teach, comfort and bless me. Be thou my Arm, my Eye, my Joy and my Salvation. Mortify the power of sin, and increase the image of thy holiness in my heart. Anoint me with fresh oil, make me humble, faithful, diligent and obedient. Let me in all things attend to thy word as my rule, to thy glory as my end, and depend upon thy power and promise for safety and success. I am now in the 49th year of my age, and may expect in the course of a few years at most to go whence I shall no more return, nor have I a certainty of continuing here a single year or even a month or a day. May thy grace keep me always waiting till my appointed change shall come, and when the summons shall come may I be enabled to rejoice in thee, as the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.
For the rest of this podcast series, we will be getting help from the first few chapters of Looking Unto Jesus by Isaac Ambrose. This 17th-century book was written after a prolonged illness and has been helping Christians gaze at the surpassing beauty of Jesus Christ for over 400 years.
Looking Unto Jesus was out of print for some time, but we were happy to find it available for sale again. We were so happy, in fact, that we bought two copies to give away at the end of this series. If you would like to be entered to win a copy, you can join the Media Gratiae email list. Our email subscribers get two emails a week: the first is a devotional thought from trustworthy writers and sometimes our own studies, and the other email highlights the podcast content we are publishing that week. If you are interested, you can sign up here:
https://www.mediagratiae.org/the-whole-counsel-giveaway
Show Notes:
Sign up to win a copy of Looking Unto Jesus here: https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/looking-unto-jesus-ambrose.html
See our previous episodes where we mentioned Looking Unto Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLLiw_Xqa08
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This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 15:17)The World is Reaching a Catastrophic Fertility Rate: The Huge Demographic Changes Taking Place Before Our Eyes WorldwideSuddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed. by The Wall Street Journal (Greg Ip and Janet Adamy)Part II (15:17 – 18:10)Secularization, Lifestyle Choices, and Complexities of Modernity: The Devastating Causes of the Falling Birth Rates WorldwidePart III (18:10 – 19:47)Our Society Has an Increasing Death Impulse: Even After Statewide Abortion Bans, the Abortion Rate Keeps Creeping UpDespite state bans, abortions nationwide are up, driven by telehealth by NPR (Elissa Nadworny)Part IV (19:47 – 25:25)Residency Students Look to States Without Abortion Bans? What Does It Say of the Medical Community That is So Committed to the Culture of Death?Fewer medical students are applying to residency in states with near-total abortion bans by The Hill (Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

Death is always a difficult topic for conversation. But Archibald Alexander focuses on the reality of death in this week’s letter to those in the autumn of life. John Snyder, using Alexander’s letters helps us see what can make death particularly bitter and how to seek comfort in times of intense distress.
Alexander also shares his pastoral wisdom with us regarding improper ways of dealing with those who have died in an unknown spiritual state. There are times we are not to pronounce them sainted or damned. We must trust the judgment of Christ and be careful with our wording. But he goes further to address the reality of deathbed conversions and how we are to think of them.
Lastly, Alexander points us to the One who is our only comfort in life and death. We can hold up the torch of Scripture on our path to the grave and be confident in our steps leading to our eternity with our Savior.
While we had hoped to give away a biography of Archibald, it is currently unavailable. In its stead, we are giving away five pamphlets of the letters published by Log College Press: https://www.logcollegepress.com/shop/aging-in-grace-letters-to-those-in-the-autumn-of-life. You can sign up for the giveaway here https://www.mediagratiae.org/the-whole-counsel-giveaway
You can read his “Letters to the Aged” online here: https://gracegems.org/26/letters_to_the_aged.htm
Want to listen to The Whole Counsel on the go? Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app: https://www.mediagratiae.org/podcasts
You can get The Whole Counsel a day early on the Media Gratiae App: https://subsplash.com/mediagratiae/app