Adversity
by Terry Johnson
Background Reading:
Romans 8:26-39; Genesis 50:15-21
In 1858, a gifted young Presbyterian missionary named John G. Paton sailed with his wife and infant son to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific to begin missionary work among the islanders. Within a few months of arrival, both his infant son and his wife had died, leaving him to labor alone.
In August 1876, a gifted young theologian names Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield and his bride were honeymooning in Germany. While sightseeing in the Black Forest region, they were suddenly caught in a severe storm, and something that was never quite explained happened to his bride, rendering her an invalid for the rest of their lives together.
In the 1950s the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah congregation called a young preacher to take the reigns of a very divided church. He came with his wife and their five children, the youngest only three years old. Within a year and a half, Anton Van Puffelen developed a brain tumor, and in just over two years after he started his work in Savannah the Rev. Van Puffelen was dead.
How do you explain these things? Perhaps just as baffling, how do you explain the responses of these individuals? John G. Patton stayed on the field and reaped a great harvest, later saying:
I built the grave round and round with coral blocks, and covered the top with beautiful white coral, broken small gravel; and that spot became my sacred and much frequented shrine, during all the following months and years when I labored on for the salvation of these savage Islanders amidst difficulties, dangers and deaths. Whensoever Tanna turns to the Lord, and is won for Christ, man in after-days will find the memory of that spot still green – where with ceaseless prayers and tears I claimed that the land for God in which I hand ‘buried my dead’ with faith and hope.
If you are giving books as a gift to your friends and family this year, we have compiled a list of some of the best classic and contemporary books for beginner, intermediate and advanced readers. If you work through the books on this list you will be devotionally enriched and will be giving yourself a solid theological education that you would not get at the vast majority of seminaries. This is certainly not an exhaustive list but a good foundation.
by John Hendryx
Visitor Question: Doesn’t Matthew 22:14 contradict Romans 8:29-30? In other words, how can Matthew claim that not all who called are chosen, while Romans claims that all who are predestined are called?
by J. C. Ryle
by Greg Johnson
Free eBooks on Regeneration
The Prophet confirms the truth in the preceding verse, when he said that there would be a wholly different lot to the Jews, as they would in every way be blessed. He shows the cause of the change; for God would begin to favor them, who had been before displeased with them. We indeed know that the Holy Spirit everywhere calls men before God’s tribunal, that they may know that no adversity happens to them, except through their sins. So also in this place Zechariah reminds us, that God had been angry with the Jews, because they had provoked his wrath. But now a promise is added, that God had turned; not that he had changed his mind, but he meant to show that he was pacified. (88) We indeed know that we are to judge of God’s love or hatred to us by outward things; for when God treats us severely, manifest tokens of his wrath appear; but when he deals kindly with us, then the fruit of reconciliation seems evident. According to this view does he now say, that God was of another mind than formerly towards the Jews; for he designed to show them kindness, having before sharply and severely chastised them. But we must more particularly consider each part.
Both Muslim and militant Secular fundamentalists are quite alike. They both seek a monopoly on power and wield this power through the worship of an "us vs. them" political deity which will use just about any means, including demolishing their opponents, to accomplish their political ends. Both marginalize their rivals: one uses the tactics of fear in mass media by demonizing their opponents, relegating them to a outer margins of society through the endless repeating of the mantra that those who do not think like them belong to the untouchable status of a bigoted hate group; the other through forced conversions or death. Both groups are ultra-violent and genocidal: one toward those who do not convert; the other to those who are an inconvenience. Both are enemies of free speech: The secularist originally championed free speech but now that they have gained power the first amendment has started to become a liability to them. Political Islam believes outward submission is all that matters so as long as no one freely speaks about their actual thoughts and feelings then all is well. Both fine or tax groups that disagree with their agenda (Jizya). Militant Secularism sings "Imagine no religion" while seeking to privilege its atheistic values, as in Communist states. Islam sings "Imagine a worldwide caliphate." Hmm, Not that different after all. The biggest difference between these groups, I would argue, is that Fundamentalist Islam does not really conceal their true intentions. It is right there in their historic doctrine and early practices. But Secularism is a bit less transparent. It pretends to be tolerant and believe in freedom of conscience, all the while ultimately having similar totalitarian tendencies.
This Thanksgiving, YOU are not going to convince your relatives and friends of the truth of the gospel. You can present evidence or argue with them till you are blue in the face, and they are not going to budge. At least you cannot win them over by argument alone. Remember, the reason people do not change their minds about what they believe is because their affections control their reasoning, their motivations, their presuppositions and their intuitions (John 3:19-20; Rom 1:18-21). Affections shape and bias the way we all process information and so people tend to rationalize on behalf of outcomes they want to see. People are skeptical of, and hardened toward, information they don't want to believe and have deep motivations to protect information they do want to believe. So evidence, by itself, is a really bad way to try to convince someone of the gospel. But join your evidence and the gospel with your persistent heartfelt prayers for your friends and family and God may show up and surprise you. The seeds you plant and water may be germinated by the Spirit. So do not stop reasoning and persuading, but remember that understanding the gospel is a supernatural event where God changes hearts of stone to flesh (Ezek 36:26; ! Cor 3:7; 12:3; 1 Thess 1:4, 5) so continue to look up in prayer for God's help as you lovingly communicate the only truth which can deliver them from their captivity, of which we all once were a part.