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Wishing Others Ill

Comment: It is very difficult to respect the feelings of people who want to either kill you or watch you take your own life. If religious people insist on putting it about globally that all gay people are rampantly promiscuous disease carrying child rapists who they want god to kill, as far as I am concerned it has to be "war to the knife" until such things are no longer preached.

Response: I have been a Christian for nearly 30 years and have never heard (publicly or privately) my Christian friends (or even Facebook friends) even during a heated argument say they would like to see their atheist or gay friends killed ...no doubt the media can always look through the haystack to find the Westboro (needle) with their 40 members .. but to wish such a curse upon someone because they are a sinner like me would not merely be disrespectful but would deny the core doctrine of Christianity itself.. that Jesus came to redeem us because we are all in need of redeeming... all of us are desperately cracked about the head and in need of mending.. and that it is the grace and mercy of God alone that ANY OF US, especially me, need if there is any hope to be reconciled with God .. that I am not saved because I am wiser or more moral than you but because of God's mercy alone to an ill-deserving sinner like me .. if someone claiming to be a Christian does not believe that basic truth then they are not a Christian to begin with. You may disagree with Christianity and you have freedom of conscience to do so... but no true Christian hates or thinks himself more deserving than atheists or gay people.. .and if you ever hear one say it is their "hope" that you end up in hell you would do well to challenge their understanding of their own faith.

Abrahamic Covenant Fulfilled By Christ

"The Abrahamic covenant referred to blessings that were YET FUTURE (e.g.. the justification of "all the nations" (Gal 3:8) through faith in Christ. The New Covenant on the other hand speaks of these same blessings NOW REALIZED "in the fullness of time."

Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." Gal 3:8

Paul describes the events surrounding the coming of Christ and the inauguration of the New Covenant by the term "Faith". He does this in order to contrast the gospel's central principle (faith) with the Old Covenant's central principle (works).

With the coming of Christ, Promise finds its culmination and fulfillment. "All the promises of God find their 'Yes' in Him." Those promises include Christ's death and resurrection for the salvation of His people, the ingathering of the Gentiles and their justification by faith, personal "teaching" from God for every true child of Abraham, and especially the "promised" gift of the Holy Spirit.

With the coming of Christ, Law also finds its culmination and fulfillment. Christ fulfills every one of the Law's prophesies, sacrifices, types, and shadows. He also fulfills every righteous principle of moral conduct embodied in the Law. Not only this, but Christ fulfills all the legal "conditions" of the Mosaic Law represented by its blessings and curses. By His perfect life, He satisfies on our behalf the Law's positive demands, and by His perfect death, He satisfies on our behalf the Law's negative demands.

Obama Enacting His Religion As President

David French has an article for National Review on Barack Obama's religious views. There's a lot of significant information there, but here are some good portions that have implications beyond Obama:

Covenants of Promise, Law & Faith

1) God's covenant with Abraham the NT describes by the term "Promise".

2) God's covenant with Israel through Moses the NT describes by the term "Law".

3) The New Covenant the NT describes by the term "Faith"

It is clear that Paul views the Law as fundamentally different from both Promise and Faith:

"For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise." Gal 3:18

"The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, "The person who does these things will live by them." Gal 3:12

Paul repeatedly speaks of the Mosaic Covenant in terms of "works", in contrast with "faith."

"For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them..” Gal 3:10-12

"When Israel sinned, no prophet ever interceded for the nation on the basis of Law, but solely on the basis of grace, imploring God for mercy and appealing to the covenant God had made with Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob." (See Ex 32:12-14; Deut 9:24-27; 2 Kings 13:22-23)

Charles Leiter

2015 Summit on Inerrancy

This year’s Shepherds’ Conference is no ordinary conference.This is a historic event, with more than 4,000 pastors and church leaders gathering at Grace Community Church to celebrate and affirm their commitment to the doctrine of inerrancy.

For those of you not able to be at the conference, here are several ways you can access the content:

You can livestream the conference through either Shepherds’ Conference or TMS.

Or, if you’ve missed the sessions, you can read the liveblog overviews or watch videos at the following links:

Session 1: John MacArthur - (Video)

Session 2: Alistair Begg

Session 3: R. C. Sproul - (Video)

Session 4: Stephen Nichols

Session 5: Ligon Duncan

Session 6: Miguel Nuñez

Session 7: Carl Trueman

Videos available here

HT: Nathan Busenitz

Made for Another World

I give painful
evidence every day.
I experience it in
predictable and unpredictable
moments.
I guess I should know
better,
but I am often
caught off guard.
There is an
insatiable longing
inside of me,
a thirst that never
seems to be
quenched.
This deep hunger
doesn't go away
no matter how busy
I get
or how hard I work to be
distracted.
I long for
Justice
Love
Hope
Peace
Perfection
Satisfaction
Mercy
Contentment
Rest
Harmony
Joy
and none of these
longings
ever gets fully
satisfied.
And so in my quest
for more
I am faced with
the incontrovertible
daily evidence
that this simply is not all
that there is
and the sure truth
that I was
hardwired
for another world.

Excerpt from this post by Paul Tripp

The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate (5-Part MP3 Lecture Series)

These are the audio recordings of Dean Davis' recent seminar on eschatology, called The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate. The seminar topics parallel the structure of the book, but give the gist of things in a fairly condensed way.

High King of Heaven, Part I (MP3)

High King of Heaven, Part II (MP3)

High King of Heaven, Part III (MP3)

High King of Heaven, Part IV (MP3)

High King of Heaven, Part V (MP3)

High King of Heaven Q&A (MP3)

Author Dean Davis presents the concepts from his book "The High King of Heaven" which provides the discovery of the Master Keys to the Great End Times Debate.

Augustine on Free Grace

The human will is so divinely helped in the pursuit of righteousness, that he [the believer] receives the Holy Spirit, by whom there is formed in his mind a delight in, and a love of, that supreme and unchangeable good, which is God. By this gift to him of the down payment, as it were, of the free gift, he [the believer] conceives a burning desire to cleave to his Maker. A mans free will, indeed, does not help at all except to sin, if he does not know the way of truth. And even after he begins to know his duty and proper aim, unless he also takes delight in and feels a love for it, he neither does his duty, nor sets about it, nor lives rightly. Now, in order that such a course may engage our affections, Gods love is shed abroad in our hearts, not through the free will which arises from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit, who is given to us [Rom 5: 5].

~Augustine~

What is grace? That which is freely given. What is “freely given”? Given, not paid. If it was due, wages would be given, but grace would not be bestowed. But if it was really due, then you were good. But if, as is true, you were evil but believed on him who justifies the ungodly (What is, “who justifies the ungodly”? the ungodly is made righteous), consider what by right hung over you by the law and you have obtained by grace. But having obtained that grace by faith, you will be just by faith—”for the just lives by faith.”

~Augustine~

"In some places God requires newness of heart [Ezek 18:31]. But elsewherre he testifies that it is given by him [Ezek. 11:19; 36:26]. But what God promises we ourselves do not do through choice or nature; but he himself does through grace."-

The Spirit as Regenerator of the Church

It is particularly John, following the teaching of his Lord, who is in a unique sense the ‘theologian of the birth from above.’ It is he who records Jesus’ ‘birth from above sayings’ in his discourse with Nicodemus in John 3:1–15; 3:3, 5, 7, 8: ‘I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again [ἄνωθεν], he cannot see the kingdom of God … I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God … You must be born again [ἄνωθεν]. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’

In every other place in the Gospel where it occurs, 3:31; 19:11, 23, ἄνωθεν means ‘from above.’ I would urge therefore that ἄνωθεν means ‘from above’ in the ‘new birth’ passages where it occurs (3:3, 7). That is to say, strictly speaking, Jesus is not talking about ‘new birth’; he is talking about ‘birth from above,’ that is, from God.

When Jesus teaches that only those who have been ‘begotten from above’ (ἄνωθεν) can ‘see’ and ‘enter’ (figurative expressions for ‘faith activities’) the kingdom of God, he surely intends that regeneration is essential to faith as the latter’s causal prius. This is brought out quite clearly in John 1:12–13:

‘… to all who received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—those not of natural descent [born], nor [born] of human will or a husband’s will, but born of God.’

The Diagnosis and Cure for an Angry Heart by Brian Hedges

Of the seven daily sins, wrath may be the most difficult to acknowledge as sin. We’re miserable in envy, depressed by sloth, and embarrassed by gluttony and lust. Those sins may be hard to admit to others, but not usually to ourselves. Wrath is different. We can be deeply angry without fully realizing we’re sinning because anger usually feels so right. Wrath is a chameleon adept at disguise, quickly adapting its color to a variety of background reasons and rationalizations.

Of course, there is a kind of anger that is not sinful (see Eph. 4:26). Aristotle praised the person “who gets angry at the right things and with the right people, and also in the right way and at the right time and for the right length of time.” The word Aristotle used to describe this kind of person is the same word found in Scripture for meekness or gentleness. A meek or a gentle person is a person whose anger is rightly ordered: directed at the right things and expressed in an appropriate manner. Sometimes it is right to be angry. When wicked people prey upon the weak and helpless, love for the victims demands anger and the pursuit of justice. But sinful wrath is what Dorothy Sayers called the “love of justice perverted to revenge and spite.”

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