Quote of the Day

 The good news is that demonstration of what God is accomplishing in spite of me.  It makes it the best news possible because it doesn't depend upon my right response. Even after Jesus told Peter he was going to deny Him, if faith then was built on his (Peter's) response, then he failed in faith! But Jesus had already told them, before He admonished them regarding "don't let your hearts be troubled", 'You're going to do this' (to deny Him, to forsake Him), 'this is going to happen, He didn't say "you might", He didn't say "you might".  "You will!" That's the beauty of the Gospel! We're troubled in every way! And yet God is still doing His work! We doubt Him, and God is doing His work, we may even deny Him and yet God is still doing His work , in us, through us, for us - bringing us to that glorious conclusion that "this is what I've (God has) done." And so we go in faith to the Word, and that Word builds that faith. We don't  go with our faith to the Word, we go with the faith given to us by the Spirit of God, to the Word and that is built and developed

- Rick Lambert

(Author of Polycarp: A destroyer of our gods)

From his sermon: Love's Message

Quote of the Day

Speaking on James 1:14: 

Temptation finds its strength and source from within ourselves. The brutal truth of our sin, personal sinning, is that it is all in and of ourselves - not only can't God be blamed, but no other (person or thing) can be blamed - it is sad to realize how many still trust the validity of their 'blame shifting' and then add an extra 'perimeter fence' of protection by no longer identifying sin as sin - sinners are encouraged by other sinners to find shelter in their being a victim. 

The process is ls illustrated by James as being , first, each person being tempted (tested to prove slavery to sin) by their own desire/lust (ἐπιθυμίας - passions, inner cravings and inclinations) - this process of temptation first "lures" (NASB has "carried away") - "lure" is a better descriptive word since it was used of luring a fish with bait and visuals. 

Then they are "enticed" (another hunting/fishing term) and so are trapped and ensnared - there is an attraction, leading to exploration, ending in entrapment (hooked) - these lusts then become the trap itself (prison, unhookable hook).

 

This can be pictured as if there are internal counselors working to achieve an inner desire - the counselor of feelings begins to prod us for attention for some "needed relief" or fulfillment, followed closely by the advisor of reason (not considering that feelings has paid-off/bribed or blackmailed reason by its relentlessness and insistence) - the advisor of reason is then accompanied by the scholar of memory, vividly portraying past yielding, only showing photos of the "good times" - with all such counsel, we play along (disregarding the Holy Spirit) and so the manager of decision, believing all needed research has been dutifully done, signs-off to action (sin). 

So rather than being a victim of the external influences to sin, we discover we are instigators, working with even the enemies from without to conquer any convicting and motivating work of God within us - the "conspiracy" ends up being us.

- Don Lambert

From his sermon series on James

Quote of the Day

The progress of Christianity has been confessedly tardy. From the places where first its light shone, the candlestick has been removed; and where now we speak of it as established, we are constrained to make the humiliating acknowledgment that nine-tenths of the profession is false. Our missions proceed also but slowly, indeed more slowly than we will allow ourselves to think; and though we hang upon the lips of the newly arrived missionary, and drink in with avidity the reports of each society, when we come in the moment of cool reflection to ask, what has been done? I say the answer is, but little. Nor is it from want of exertion: for never was there such a host of instrumentality brought to bear on the promotion of Christianity as of late years: and, without making the state of things worse than it really is, I yet say that the mind that would take for its data, on which to expect the speedy establishment of Christ's kingdom, the means now in use, and the success attending them, must be indeed must sanguine. I know how unwelcome are these observations. I know that it will be said they serve no purpose but to check Christian exertion, - to damp Christian energy. But it is not so; they may check the exertion and damp the energy which owe their existence to false stimulus; but the exertion or the energy which has for its motive the glory of God - which appreciates the value of the immortal soul, and carries with it the recollection that 'there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over ONE sinner that repenteth: will not be diverted from its purpose merely by having its expectations corrected. Indeed on the contrary; for, as it is said that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," I fear there is more danger of the exertion relaxing which is subject to disappointment, than that which has for its measure and guide a more moderate but more certain prospect. 

The truth is, as it appears to me, that we have altogether mistaken the object of this, the Gentile dispensation. That 'the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ," - that "the Son shall have "the Heathen for his inheritance, and the  ut-"most parts of the earth for his possession,"- that "'the kingdom and dominion UNDER the "whole heaven shall be given to the saints of "the Most High;" - all this is most true: these are the sure promises of God. But that they shall not be fulfilled during this dispensation, is also and equally sure and true. At the sounding of the "seventh trumpet" shall be the first, (Rev. xi.15.) at the destruction of the Antichristian confederacy, is the second, (Ps ii.8,9,) at the falling of the stone on the feet of the image, and the judgment on the little horn of the fourth beast, is the third; in a word all three at the SECOND COMING of Christ. Consider these passages and you will see that so far from this dispensation being appointed to convert the world it actually stands in the way of it - that the apostasy of the Gentiles denoted by "the working of the mystery of iniquity," retards (if I may so speak)  that wished for event; and that not until it is judged, in order to which it must first be consummated, will the kingdom of our God come with power. 

William De Burgh from his book Lectures on the Second Advent [With an introduction on the use of Unfulfilled Prophecy] Published in 1832

Quote of the Day

  When we turn from the restless entreaties and exhortations which fill the pages of our modern missionary magazines to the pages of the New Testament, we are astonished at the change in atmosphere. St Paul does not repeatedly exhort his churches to subscribe money for the propagation of the Faith, he is far more concerned to explain to them what the faith is, and how they ought to practice it and keep it.  The same is true of St Peter and St John, and all of the apostolic writers. They do not seem to feel any necessity to repeat the great Commission, and to urge that it is the duty of their converts to make disciples of all the nations. What we read in the New Testament is no anxious appeal to Christians to spread the Gospel, but a note here and there which suggests how the Gospel was being spread abroad: 'the churches were established in the faith and increased in number daily', 'in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything', or as a result of a persecution: 'They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word'......I know not how it may appear to others, but to me this unexhorted unorganized, spontaneous expansion has a charm far beyond that of our modern highly organized missions. I delight to think that a Christian travelling on his business, or fleeing from persecution, could preach Christ, and a church spring up as the result of his preaching, without his work being advertised through the streets of Antioch or Alexandria as the heading of an appeal to Christian men to subscribe funds to establish a school, or as the text of an exhortation to the church of his native city to send a mission, without which new converts deprived of guidance must inevitably lapse. I suspect, however, that I am not alone in this strange preference, and that many others read their Bibles and find there with relief a welcome escape from our material appeals for funds, and from our methods of moving heaven and earth to make a proselyte......

The Spirit of Christ is a Spirit who longs for, and strives after, the salvation of the souls of men, and that Spirit dwells in them. That Spirit converts the natural instinct into a longing for the conversion of others which is indeed divine in its source and character.

- Roland Allen

From his book: The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church

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