Trust in the Lord with All Your Heart
Those whom the Lord regenerates are new creations and the Lord’s Law is in their hearts, but they must still work out what God has put in them. Of course, the Lord will empower them to do so. These are the ones who have peace with God even in the maelstrom of this sin sick and demon infested world.
1 My son, do not forget my teaching,
But let your heart keep my commandments;
2 For length of days and years of life
And peace they will add to you. Proverbs 3:1-2 (NASB)
The Protestant Reformation was not a reforming of Christianity, but a rediscovery of God’s Truth that had been covered up, squandered, perverted, and misrepresented by the Roman Catholic Church for several centuries. Christianity has once again reached a point of contention where there are those who claim that the Protestant Reformation went astray and we need another reformation. I agree that the Church is very sick right now. However, the fault isn’t with the Reformers or what they did. The problems seem to be centered on a complete loss of godly wisdom spawned by there being no fear of God. Man is seen as sovereign and God is seen as subservient to Christian leaders.
This environment has been the breeding ground of neo-evangelism that is so devoted to evangelism that it suppresses and does away with Bible Study, discipleship, and all other things that distract from their evangelical push. They do this to such an extent that evangelism has become their golden calf. Admittedly, there has been much wrong with the church since the end of Spurgeon’s time. Aberrations of Christianity has always plagued the Church, but it seems that since the latter part of the 19th Century with the passing of Spurgeon and Broadus and their contemporaries, there has been an increasing emphasis on man-focused religion. The current push into neo-evangelism and the emergent church movements are actually quite natural expressions of rebellion against what these folks see as deadwood religion. If we take a look at TBN, for example, it is clear that something is very wrong.
The answer is not the reforming of our churches into the seeker-sensitive, post-modern, flesh-pleasing enterprises that are run by marketing experts and MBAs. Their solution is to build churches based upon what sells. If we study the ministry of our Lord and the Apostles we find very quickly that they did not use that model for a very good reason. Christianity is not supposed to be an evangelical push. Instead, it is a declaration of the Good News that there is peace available between God and men made possible by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross and His subsequent resurrection and ascension. The call to this Good News is to those who will believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour as they die to self and live out their lives for Him. That is not a message that will sell well. However, that is not the point. The point has never been about quantity of converts. Instead, it is about quality.
Puritans would never allow people to profess Jesus openly and join their church without examining them first. They understood that the call to salvation could produce false converts. They knew that they did new converts no favor if they indulged any false conversions. That is something to ponder in our time when anyone can claim to be a Christian simply because of his or her religiosity or feelings.
Again, what is the answer?
-
Don’t Women Need Access to Abortion for Rape?
The circumstance in which a baby is conceived may be wicked, but that does not make the unborn baby less valuable. Murdering an unborn baby who is conceived by rape does not righteously fix a situation but only adds crime upon crime. Punish the rapist—not the baby. Justice is getting what you deserve and giving others what they deserve. Murdering an unborn baby is unjust because an unborn baby does not deserve to die. You don’t have the right to tell my fourteen-year-old daughter she has to carry her rapist’s baby.” That’s what Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the world, recently argued when he interviewed Seth Dillon, owner and CEO of the satire website The Babylon Bee.
-
Dr. Carl W. Bogue, 82, Retired PCA Minister, Called Home to Glory
Returning to the US in 1969, he took a pastorate at Allenside United Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio. He would spend the rest of his career in Akron, first at Allenside and then at Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA), which he led out of the mainline denomination in 1975. Faith PCA was the first church in that denomination outside of the Southern United States.
Carl William Bogue (1939-2022) fell asleep in the Lord and passed into glory on Sunday morning, September 18, 2022.
Carl was born on December 8,1939 in Vincennes, Indiana, the son of Carl W. Bogue Sr. and Jessie Mae (Parker) Bogue.
He grew up in Princeton, IN, graduated from Princeton High School in 1957, and attended Muskingum College in Ohio, where he met his future wife, Rosalie Maffett. He graduated in 1961 with a B.A. in History and Philosophy.
After college he spent a year at the Presbyterian mission in Dembi Dollo, Ethiopia, teaching 7th and 8th grade.
He married Rosalie in 1962. They would eventually have four children together. He then attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary for three years, receiving an M.Div. After graduation from seminary he moved to the Netherlands, where he studied systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam, receiving a Doctorandus and ultimately, ThD.
Returning to the US in 1969, he took a pastorate at Allenside United Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio. He would spend the rest of his career in Akron, first at Allenside and then at Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA), which he led out of the mainline denomination in 1975. Faith PCA was the first church in that denomination outside of the Southern United States.
Also in 1975, he defended his doctoral thesis, Jonathan Edwards and the Covenant of Grace, by oral exam, in Dutch, at the Free University. His doctorate was republished in 2009, in coordination with the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University.
In addition to pastoring a church and keeping a full preaching schedule, he was active in church leadership at the regional level (Ascension Presbytery) and the national level, serving on various committees for the PCA General Assembly. He was a signatory to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. He taught theology to students at Westminster Academy, a Christian school started by Faith Church. Over the course of his career, he mentored many young men who later became pastors and missionaries in the PCA and Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Besides his thesis, he wrote numerous articles, some pamphlets, and contributed chapters to several books. He taught courses focused on theology and missions at several seminaries and institutions of higher learning, both in the USA and in South Korea and Cyprus. Over the course of his long career, he maintained an extensive correspondence with his colleagues in the pastorate and on the mission field, and with fellow Christians around the world. He welcomed opportunities to travel and teach or preach wherever he went.
Rosalie passed away from cancer in 2004. He remarried, to Deborah Jones Feil. He retired in 2007 and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. Even after retirement, he maintained an active preaching and teaching schedule, preaching in many vacant pulpits throughout Arizona and at Calvin OPC in Phoenix. He was received into the OPC in 2020 (Presbytery of Southern California). He and Deborah recently joined a new OPC church plant in Scottsdale; Providence OPC.
He enjoyed playing tennis, and was a lifelong fan of Indiana college basketball, Ohio State football, and the St. Louis Cardinals. He appreciated classical music and had a large record collection. His photo collection was even larger, a testimony to a life filled with family, church work, and travel. He was a skilled gardener and loved fishing in the Portage Lakes of Ohio and the trout streams of New Mexico and Arizona. He had his private pilot’s license for many years. After he retired, he took up skiing with Deb and looked forward to every opportunity to practice his new hobby.
He is survived by wife Deborah, children Katherine Chapman (Stephen), Andrew Bogue, Elizabeth Bogue, and Sarah Coombes (Christopher), and eight grandchildren: Daniel (Caroline), Peter, Emma, and Chloe Chapman; Liam, Ulrik, Rosalie and Brynn Coombes. He was a mentor and father in the faith to many more. After fighting the good fight, keeping the faith, and finishing his course, he is at home with his Lord. He would not want us to mourn him too much, but rather to work diligently for Christ’s kingdom.
The funeral of Dr Carl Bogue will be held at 11am on Saturday the 15th October 2022 at Redeemer PCA in Hudson, Ohio (190 W Streetsboro St, Hudson, OH 44236). There will be a light lunch following the service with a burial at 2.30pm at Manchester Cemetery ( 1030 West Nimisila Road, Manchester, OH 45144).
A Service of Thanksgiving to God for the life of Dr. Bogue will be held at 1pm on Saturday the 1st October 2022 at Providence OPC in Scottsdale, Arizona (Desert Valley Church, 7575 E Redfield Rd Suite #101, Scottsdale, AZ 8526).
As church planting was something very dear to Dr. Bogue’s heart, the family asks that in lieu of flowers you make a donation to your presbytery for church planting in your presbytery.
Related Posts: -
Has the Internet Corrupted Our Moral Outrage?
We should not always be quick to dismiss each other. Instead, our comments should point out our concerns without jumping to the conclusion that the person on the other end of the keyboard needs to be abandoned because they are not infallible. Even if they remain stubborn in their error, we can agree to disagree if the difference is on secondary doctrinal issues.
I recently had an experience that is common to all. After rushing to meet a self-imposed deadline, I hit publish on one of my articles, and I awoke the following day to an unpublished comment by someone who was literally shocked at the ambiguity of the article, its lack of biblical truth, and my dangerous practice. They then let me know that it may be time to unsubscribe.
I occasionally experience this kind of response from people who disdain Christianity, so I usually let the comments roll off my back, but this was different. Though I do not know the commenter, there was no indication that they held strange or heretical views. They seemed to be a fellow believer who valued the same things I value. On top of that, they made two critiques of my post, and both were valid.
The first critique was that I had made a controversial statement without backing it up with scripture. The second involved a misleading lack of clarity on my part, which I failed to see before I published the article. Using the commenter’s critiques, I made a couple of minor edits to my post to remove the sticking points.
Why do I bring this up? Because the internet, especially social media, has trained us to respond to things with moral outrage even before we know if moral outrage is warranted.
Read More
Related Posts:
