Justin Peters et al. - Let's Talk About Asbury

I have commented elsewhere on the above mentioned contribution, as follows: 

As to the recent Asbury phenomena, Acts 5:13 springs to mind (one notices the absence of the fear of God, the soul of genuine piety). The Coming of the Holy Spirit is evidenced in three ways, John 16:8-11. Acts 2 is a fulfilment of all that, with preaching being at the heart of it - as always. Word and Spirit belong together, or else deadness (without the Spirit) or fanaticism (without the Word the Spirit) will eventually take over. One also notes that Christ is no longer central (John 15:26). The most Spirit-filled Christian is also most Christlike! Here every true believer struggles. Discerning readers ought to familiarize themselves with the tests of a true revival by studying the Scriptures more carefully. The church must always be bred and led and fed by the Word of God. J. Edwards is of great help here. I note the gracious tone of these three men who have to teach us a lot.

His Holiness or His Hellishness?!

A highly respected Christian brother has expressed his personal view on the recent death of Pope Benedict XIII. (M. Luther would have called the pope not 'his holiness', but 'his hellishness' - even R. Dawkins can learn from that!), saying: "One thing is clear from the Bible, we know where the soul of the papa is right now - in the bottomless pit!". 

True, true, unless God granted him repentance before he died, and of that we cannot know with absolute certainty, though Benedict's successor would disagree with me as he seems to be a universalist! 

For all that, Rome - and the late pope - have deliberately rejected the biblical Gospel of 'grace alone, in Christ alone, by faith alone', anathematising any dissenters (see Canon IX.ff. / Session 6 - The Council of Trent) – in the name of God! Trent may be old hat, but its dogmatism has never been revoked, and it can't be as the Council convened under the Holy Ghost which surely is a new definition of blasphemy! 

Going back to the late pope, I find it inconceivable that the Spirit of truth could lead anyone to become a pope at all. Was it not Pope Gregory the Great who said that the “universal bishop” is the Antichrist?!

Ignorant friends need to read 'Pope Boniface VIII's Unam Sanctam' (which no infallible pope can repudiate!). P. Schaff is surely right when he said, in less strong language than I could manage about that greatest of all human egomaniacs that has ever walked on earth, that in the Unam sanctam "the arrogance of the papacy finds its most naked and irritating expression." Amongst all Romish writings I find it to be the most detestable one! It makes Putin look nice!

The late pope was sound on some doctrines and outspoken on moral issues, but Matthew 7:21ff. remains as a strong warning to all who think that Christianity is just about being good and orthodox, or intellectually respectable! It is regrettable that so many so-called evangelicals have been taken in by Romanism.

Ratzinger certainly preached another gospel and he should have listened to the apostle Paul (Galatians 1, in loc.), but since when has Rome accepted ‘sola Scriptura’?! Not since the Protestant Reformation, at any rate!

What matters is not what we think of Ratzinger, or for that matter, about this writer’s opinion, but 'what do you think of Christ?'! He needs to be at the centre of our preaching and our living - and here Rome is of no help, whatsoever, as evidenced from Benedict's Funeral Mass, none of which can be squared with New Testament Christianity by any stretch of the imagination! 

R. Albert Mohler Jr. [see his ‘A warning from Rome The funeral of Pope Benedict XVI holds big lessons for evangelical Christians’], with whose brain no one seems able to compete these days, has missed the point altogether by not addressing my concerns, but I will have to forgive him, as we are strangers  to one another!

That "Funtastic" Woman Again!

 

Al Mohler's address, viz. 'The Legacy of Margaret Thatcher', has warmed my heart. Okay, he got muddled over England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, not to mention the British aristocracy, and he could, indeed, should also have drawn attention to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation! He also pertinently referred to one of my favourite addresses by the lady, which has come to be known as 'the Sermon on the Mound' (named after the location in Edinburgh) which is also watchable online here. I doubt whether there are many pulpits in the established Scottish Kirk that would be bold enough to speak with such clarity and conviction. 

A Mohler could, indeed, should have mentioned Keith Joseph, whose comments about the family I have referred to elsewhere on my blog. I hope that Mohler's address will act as a stimulus to explore M Thatcher's legacy again! She was a truly remarkable leader, decisive and determined, strident and focused. One knew where one stood with her, unlike what one sees today. 

Margaret Thatcher was quintessentially magnificent from the perspective of anyone who loves freedom and economic prosperity under the rule of law and order. As a conviction politician she was a formidable force, always strong because others were extremely weak, full of integrity and very British, indeed. She did, after all, put the ‘Great’ back into Britain, because she herself was a great lady. This country, not to mention millions across the globe, owes her a great debt. Like all of us, she had flaws, but history will judge her more kindly still. Will her legacy be forgotten in time? No, no, no! Never!

Cancelling what should have been cancelled!

So, 'Edinburgh Council pays damages for cancelling religious speaker' - tax payers' money, that is! So what?! A mighty triumph for the cause of Christendom? Surely not! 

The last people who should be rejoicing at having Larry Stockstill are the Scottish Presbyterians who adhere to the Establishment Principle as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith [XXIII.3 Of the Civil Magistrate]: "The civil magistrate ... hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed".

Edinburgh Council has failed the Church, yet again. And the same could be said of the Church!

Let's get together and feel all right. (B Marley)

I note, with unfeigned interest, of course, that the Free Church of Scotland has drawn attention to this (or herself?), 'National Leaders Urge the Nation to Pray'. The nation that is, and not the Church!

Judging by the impressive list we, well, anyone, I would imagine, can join in together and hopefully feel all right, by repeating a simple mantra in parrot-fashion, and presumably God will then hear us somehow and be appeased. That seems to be the general idea if I have understood this correctly. 

I was never consulted, of course, which is just as well, since bland diplomacy is not a talent that I have been blessed with in great measures, though I am restraining myself even now! The humanists will be trembling in their foxholes, God’s arm will be twisted, and once COVID-19 is gone it will the Church back to her non-praying default position, off her knees and back onto her feet! 

Unlike my Roman Catholic friends, I do not call on Mary or departed saints, let alone angels, even though I could easily pray in tongues, being a multi-linguist (okay, I am showing off!), and one day, perhaps even in Gaelic, the language of heaven, I am told! The day is drawing closer, for sure! I hope that tongue-speakers will appreciate my remarks!

I do, of course, apologise to all who choose to be offended, especially any befuddled ecumeniacs, who have so nicely dreamt it all up in the first place! Those filled with grace and humility will leave me alone, I am sure, and I count it as a great blessing to have such friends who will just forgive me! And if not, I dare say, that God has beaten them already to it, anyway, without their prayers that I do not need. One must not be too unkind, and occasionally it is necessary to cultivate the art of cowering or flattering to please our cold-hearted and hot-headed ecclesiasts! One of these days I will be needing their services, a grave undertaking it will prove to be! Then everyone one will hear that I have been good after all! 

The call to national ‘prayer’ is not without precedent, for sure, but very un-Knoxish in some respects! Just imagine that greatest of all Scotsmen praying with a priestess, or alongside a papist, or some ‘Schwaermer’! You never know how Knox’s God may have responded, or John Knox himself, for that matter! 

Well, this is the 21^st century, and Calvinism has been driven out of Scotland, and one sees very little of it in the national Kirk, or in the Free Church. Anything will do now, and there is no longer any need to stand on Gospel ground! Pelagius will do, indeed, will have to be invoked, as we are now dealing with a shrinking God who is being edged out of His own Church, though He may choose to stay on for a little longer! 

So then, does the Free Church believe that there is sanity, strength, or safety in all this? Presumably so! Dietrich Bonhoeffer once famously asked, ‘Are we still of any use?’ At the moment it does not seem like it, except for hatches, matches and dispatches! 

Under the current circumstances I have greater faith in the medical experts than in the pagan pragmatism of the spiritual oversight of the wider church who will sacrifice the truth on the altar of expediency. Indeed, I have no faith in prayer at all, let alone in the wider Church. I have come off age, to quote Bonhoeffer again! My faith, of course, is in God who answers prayer!

I will finish with Daniel's prayer: 'O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.' (Daniel 9:8). May it "unconfuse" our leaders! May God forgive all those who do not know what they are doing! 

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Sad, bad, mad!

• Mention 'Trump', and I will jump! But the term 'American evangelicalism' will affect my BP which is not necessarily good for my health! Let me explain!
• 
  Watching the first part of this disturbing documentary, viz. 2020 The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Year For The Prophets, has not been an enjoyable experience. My spiritual alarm bells, which are ringing in my ears a lot these days, have been sending some hellish shivers down my sensitive spine, leaving me somewhat disturbed!
• Some charismaniacs do, indeed, have a gift (pardon the pun) for making the Montanists and Irvingites look entirely sane. Even academics like Dr. R T Kendall, who has endorsed the so-called Toronto blessing (see here) looks normal after all!
• I'll leave it to the experts to decide on who is sane and who is not!
• I hope that president J Biden, unlike his predecessor, will keep deranged fantasists away from the White House! I would certainly not invite them into my own home!
  
• Indeed, a case can be made for building asylums for those who are somehow unhinged, and there is plenty of money to be found among them to pay for their grievous misdeeds!
• I also hope that Mark Zuckerberg will take note: A strong case for censorship can be made!
• I guess, notwithstanding, that genuine Christianity alone is worth counterfeiting. As a Bible-believing Christian, I am feeling reassured again.
• Trump is gone, Biden has come, I am still here. There is hope, after all!

PREPOSITIONAL PREACHING

Here is an adapted extract from John Kennedy’s The Days of The Fathers in Ross-shire, posing a challenge to preacher and hearer alike.

1. There are some who preach BEFORE their people, like actors on the stage,  to display themselves and to please their audience.

2. There are others who preach OVER their people. Studying
for the highest, instead of doing so for the lowest, in intelligence, they elaborate learned treatises, which float like mist, when delivered over the heads of their hearers.

3. There are some who preach PAST their people. Directing their praise or their censure to intangible abstractions, they never take aim at the views and the conduct of the individuals before them. They step carefully aside, lest their hearers should be struck by their shafts, and aim them at phantoms beyond them.

4. There are others who preach AT their people, serving out in a sermon the gossip of the week, and seemingly possessed with the idea, that the transgressor can be scolded out of the ways of iniquity.

5. There are some who preach TOWARDS their people. They aim well, but they are weak. Their eye is along the arrow towards the hearts of their hearers, but their arm is too feeble for sending it on to the mark. Superficial in their experience and in their knowledge, they reach not the cases of God s people by their doctrine, and they strike with no vigour at the consciences of the ungodly.

6. There are others still, who preach ALONG their congregation. Instead of standing with their bow in front of the rank, these archers take it in line, and reducing their mark to an individual, never change the direction of their aim.

7. But there are a few who preach TO the people directly and seasonably the mind of God in His word, with authority, unction, wisdom, fervour, and love.