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The law demands what it cannot give; grace gives all it demands." - Blaise Pascal

The following resources were selected from among the most interesting and helpful of last week's new materials available on Monergism.com.  May the Lord use them to richly bless and edify you and use them as you go out an minister to others.

Book or Sermon Excerpts

The Resurrection - God's Declaration - Acts 5:29-32 by Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones

Exposition of 1 Corinthians (MP3 Series) by Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones -
Includes some outstanding sermons on the resurrection

Humility by Wilhelmus à Brakel

Jonathan Edwards: We Are Inclined to Sin by R. C. Sproul

Athens Revisited An Exegetical Study of Acts 17 by D.A. Carson
On evangelizing in a postmodern world

The Books Opened, the Sentence Pronounced and Executed by Jonathan Edwards

The Girl Nobody Wanted - Genesis 29:15-35 by Dr. Timothy Keller

An Unpalatable, Unflatering, Pride-Striping Doctrine by A. W. Pink

Where is Your Faith? by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If the people of this age really believed morality was relative they would not so passionately go out of their way to daily call those they disagree with "bigots", "homophobes" or fire someone from their job for their political contributions. They would rather, celebrate diversity. For if all morality is relative then there would be no person's belief or philosophy that is better or worse than another's. Each person's truth would be equally valid. But, as we all know, no one lives that way because God created us in His image and absolutes are unavoidable in His world. So next time you see this kind of reaction ask them how they know you are immoral or wrong? What standard or authority are they appealing to when they reach this conclusion? Their own? If there is no objective morality, then why is our view wrong?

Relativists often tell me they think that racism, genocide and torture is wrong and think everyone should think likewise .. to which I respond that this demonstrates that they believe in objective morality. To this they often reply:

Relativist: "If I say, 'A cooked egg is better than a raw egg. Would you reply, "You stated an opinion about eggs. You must believe in an objective standard of egg quality."

Legalism could be defined as any attempt to rely on self-effort to either 1) attain or 2) maintain our justification before God. In Paul's Epistle to the Galatians he warned them sternly about such false understandings of the gospel when he asked the offenders: "After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" (Gal.3:3). Legalism always seems to have one thing in common: it's theology denies that Christ is sufficient for salvation. That some additional element of self-effort, merit or faithfulness on our part is necessary. As an example, those who erroneously teach that a Christian can lose his or her salvation are, in essence, denying the sufficiency of Christ to save to the utmost. They believe their effort has some merit in contributing toward the price of their redemption. They also believe certain sins to be greater than Christ's grace. But Christ's righteousness which he counts toward us is not only efficient for our salvation, but sufficient. His once for all sacrifice put away sin for all time in those He has united to Himself (Heb 10:10). His salvation includes not only saving us at the beginning but preserving us to the end, sealing us in His perfect righteousness and whose blood "reminds the covenant God" not to treat us as our sins justly deserve. Any attempt to add our covenant faithfulness as part of the price of redemption after regeneration and justification is an "attempt to attain our goal by human effort" and thus a complete misapprehension of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must, therefore, reject any and all attempts to maintain a judicial standing before God by any act on our part. Salvation is of the Lord.

One of the elements that makes the Bible have such a ring of truth about it is its brutally honest assessment of human nature.  Your résumé has value in every other worldview because each focuses on a belief in human attainment ... on human progress. In other words, the natural tendency of mankind is to teach views which say if you do this, and if do that, you can progress and please your god and win brownie points. This idea is one we naturally gravitate to since it gives people a sense of their self-importance.  Even in secular culture each generation thinks of themselves more enlightened than the last.

But from the beginning, the Bible has been more forthright and accurate about who we are. God sent the Prophets to Israel to testify against each generation, flatly exposing their wickedness. Even when God went after other nations, he continually reminded Israel that they deserved the same, and that it was God's mere unmerited favor that upheld them. And He kept sending His messengers up to the time of the Great Prophet, Jesus Christ who testified against His own generation.  Not only did Jesus confront openly wicked people to repent of their evil, but Jesus spent even more time exposing the sin of the so-called good people, calling them to repent of their goodness. Of course, He was not calling them to repent of doing good, but of trusting in it, since our deeds fall so woefully short of any real good. In the Bible, it is strikingly clear that religious people have nothing over irreligious people - they are not more righteous or deserving of God's redemptive favor because of something they do better than others. Salvation is granted, rather, in spite of ourselves, by the sheer mercy of God and nothing else, for if our hope were based on what any of us deserved (even partly), then none of us would have any future to look forward to.