Humpback flukes in Alaska
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RIGHT NOW COUNTS FOREVER When we think of tithing in Old Testament categories, we understand that the requirement involves returning to God the first fruits of one’s prosperity. We are required to give ten percent of our gross annual income or gain. If a shepherd’s flock produced ten new lambs, the requirement was that one of those lambs be offered to God. This offering is from the top. It is not an offering that is given after other expenses are met or after other taxes have been paid. Recently, I read an article that gave an astonishing statistic that I find difficult to believe is accurate. It declared that of all of the people in America who identify themselves as evangelical Christians, only four percent of them return a tithe to God. If that statistic is accurate, it means that ninety-six percent of professing evangelical Christians regularly, systematically, habitually, and impenitently rob God of what belongs to Him. It also means that ninety-six percent of us are for this reason exposing ourselves to a divine curse upon our lives. Whether this percentage is accurate, one thing is certain — it is clear that the overwhelming majority of professing evangelical Christians do not tithe. This immediately raises the question: “Why?” How is it possible that somebody who has given his life to Christ can withhold their financial gifts from Him? I have heard many excuses or explanations for this. The most common is the assertion that the tithe is part of the Old Testament law that has passed away with the coming of the New Testament. This statement is made routinely in spite of the complete lack of New Testament evidence for it. Nowhere in the New Testament does it teach us that the principle of the tithe has been abrogated. The New Testament does teach us, however, that the new covenant is superior to the old covenant. It is a covenant that gives more blessings to us than the old covenant did. It is a covenant that with its manifold blessings imposes greater responsibilities than the Old Testament did. If anything, the structure of the new covenant requires a greater commitment to financial stewardship before God than that which was required in the old covenant. That is to say, the starting point of Christian giving is the tithe. The tithe is not an ideal that only a few people reach but rather should be the base minimum from which we progress. Church history also bears witness that many in the early church did not consider the tithe as having been abrogated in the new covenant. One of the earliest (turn of the second century) extrabiblical documents that survives to this day is the book of the Didache. The Didache gives practical instruction for Christian living. In the Didache, the principle of the giving of the first fruits or the tithe is mentioned as a basic responsibility for every Christian. A second argument that people give to avoid the tithe is that they “cannot afford it.” What that statement really means is that they cannot pay their tithe and pay all the other expenses they have incurred. Again, in their minds the tithe is the last resort in the budget. Their giving to God is something that is at the bottom of their list of priorities. It’s a weak argument before God to say, “Lord, I didn’t tithe because I couldn’t afford it” — especially when we consider that the poorest among us has a higher standard of living than ninety-nine percent of the people who have ever walked on the face of the earth. There are many more excuses that people give to avoid this responsibility, yet the New Testament tells us: “Let the thief no longer steal” (Eph. 2:28a). If we have been guilty of stealing from God in the past by withholding our tithe from Him, that behavior must cease immediately and give way to a resolution to begin tithing at once, no matter what it costs. It’s an interesting phenomenon in the life of the church, that people who in 1960 gave a dollar to the offering plate every week, still give that same dollar today. Everything else in their living costs has been adjusted to inflation except their giving. We also have to remind ourselves that if we give gifts to God, we cannot call them tithes if these gifts fall beneath the level of ten percent. One of the sad realities of failure to tithe is that in so doing we not only are guilty of robbing God, but we also rob ourselves of the joy of giving and of the blessings that follow from it. I have yet to meet a person who tithes who has expressed to me regret for being one who tithes. On the contrary, I hear from them not a sense of judgment towards those who don’t give but rather a sense of compassion toward them. Frequently, I hear tithers saying, “People who don’t tithe just don’t know what they’re missing.” It is a cliché and a truism that you can’t out-give God. That statement has become a cliché because it is so true. In the text in Malachi, we find something exceedingly rare coming from the lips of God. Here God challenges His people to put Him to a test: “Put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need” (3:10). Have you put God to that test? Have you tried Him to see if He will not open heaven itself and empty His own treasuries upon you? We need to stop robbing Him and thus receive from Him the blessing that He promises. From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Life Without Rules Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:1) Timothy was not the son of Paul in a physical way. He was his spiritual son in the sense that it was under Paul’s ministry that this young man had turned to Christ. A child of God is born into God’s family by means of his faith in Christ. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). Timothy is in the family of God, and he is a child of God. I love this – “be strong in grace.” My friend, if you think that you can grit your teeth and go out and live the Christian life on your own, you’re in for a great disappointment. If you feel that you can follow a few little rules or some clever gimmicks to make you a mature Christian, then you have fallen into a subtle trap of legalism. Paul gives no rules, and the Word of God has no rules to tell the child of God how to live the Christian life. We are saved by grace, and now we are to live by the grace of God and be strong in that grace. Let me give you an example from my boyhood. My dad traveled a great deal in his work, and he always put down a few rules for me to follow while he was away. Some of them I obeyed. I had to cut the wood, and I didn’t mind that. But my father had some other rules that I frankly didn’t go for. I hate to admit this, but one of those rules was that I should attend Sunday school. The interesting thing is that he never went himself, but he always made me go. Anyway, when he was away from home, I didn’t go. One time I was fishing, and he came home suddenly and found me. I had just pulled out a fish, turned around, and there stood my dad. He said, “Son, are you having any luck?” Well, my luck ran out right at that moment! I appealed to him and admitted that I had done wrong, and by grace he was good to me. I really took advantage of his good nature and the fact that I was his son. My father died when I was fourteen, but now I have a heavenly Father, and I sure do appeal to His grace. When things go wrong down here, I go to Him and appeal to Him. When I fail, I don’t run from Him like I used to. I have found that when I am away from Him, the whipping He gives me hurts lots worse. I don’t want to get out at the end of that switch where it really stings. I come in close to Him, and the closer I am the less it hurts. I am a son of my heavenly Father. What a marvelous figure of speech! When I hear Christians say, “I don’t do this, and I don’t do that, and I am following a set of rules,” I immediately recognize that they know very little about the grace of God. They are trying to live the Christian life in their own strength. But Paul says, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” –From Edited Messages on 2 Timothy by Dr. J. Vernon McGee Pro Ecclesia: For the Church About forty people scattered on metal chairs greeted me on my first Sunday in my first (and only) pastorate in a quaint little sanctuary nestled in the woods between massive orange groves just west of Orlando, Florida. There were no pews, organ, carpeting or paved roads leading to this place. Snakes in the breezeway and gators in the nearby lake — I thought I was in the jungle! About one year into the ministry, a visitor complimenting my sermon whispered to me: “You won’t be here long.” Puzzled at first, I realized she meant that I wouldn’t have to labor very long in this obscure setting. I was good enough to get a bigger church! Feelings of flattery mutated into frustration. Was I supposed to be unhappy with my congregation? Were these people not worth my life’s sacrifice? Is the pastorate like a business where you climb the corporate ladder to “real success”? I determined that I would not allow that mind-set to direct my ministry. Fascination with bigness obscures the truth that Jesus, the builder (Matt. 16:18) and head (Eph. 1:22) of the church, has built many more small congregations than large ones. Small churches, not large ones, are the norm. The congregation in the United States that has more than seventy-five members is above average. A recent report from one church-growth-oriented denomination revealed that one-third of its congregations have under fifty members and one-half have under one hundred. While the first church in Jerusalem began with three thousand souls and quickly expanded to five thousand, similar results were not forthcoming in Asia. How big were the congregations in Ephesus or Colossae? The visible church of Christ grew immensely, but not all in one place. The size of its congregations varied widely then, as it does today. That it is the Lord’s decision for congregations to vary in size may be gleaned from several texts. First, in Matthew 25:14–29, we have Jesus’ parable of the distribution of talents. Each servant was given a different amount with which to serve, and each returned with a different increase. We all know pastors who not only preach to their congregations, but also turn their sermons into books for “additional mileage,” and then put those sermons on the radio for an even bigger ministry. This illustrates that Jesus has entrusted different amounts of talents to different servants producing different results. Credit the difference to Jesus! Second, in Matthew 13:23, Jesus proclaimed that the seed sown on good ground (that is, the Word preached) yields various harvests — thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. According to Jesus, we should expect varying results from the same seed and the same labor. God, not the preacher, causes the diverse increase. Salvation is of the Lord. He builds His church as He wills. Third, consider that “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (1 Cor. 12:4–6). Note that the Holy Spirit has deliberately created a variety in His church — a variety of spiritual gifts, a variety of services, and a variety of activities (“kind of working,” NIV). Does not this divinely determined variation help explain the varying sizes of Jesus’ congregations?
Usually a small church has the most favorable pastor-to-member ratio. In this respect a small church is more like Jesus’ ministry to the twelve or like the average New Testament church. A pastor of a small church can visit every home, know all his people well, and intercede for their most intimate prayer needs. Finally, what is most important to Jesus in any church? Is it not the combination of biblical proclamation of His Word, faithful administration of His sacraments, as well as loving care and Jesus-like discipline of His people? A good small church can provide all these to Jesus’ sheep, and, in the case of care and discipline, probably more intensively than a good large church. There isn’t a right and a wrong when it comes to size. Though size is surely affected by our faith versus our sin, in the end it is the Lord Jesus who makes that call. He builds the church as He wills. He distributes His gifts, ministries, and results, and gathers His people in flocks around the earth according to His own wisdom. Large, medium, or small churches are truly not in competition with each other, but are diverse parts of the Lord’s comprehensive, eternal plan for gathering all His people into one visible church — eventually — in glory. So, each pastor and congregation — each according to diverse God-given abilities — responds to Jesus’ Commission, and the results, and the glory, belong to Christ. Dr. Larry G. Mininger is senior minister at Lake Sherwood Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida, where he has served for the past thirty-seven years. The Servant
“This painting was based on Jesus’ last meal (Passover) with his disciples in the upper room on the night he was to be betrayed and arrested. In the Gospel of John, chapter 13, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet to show them his love. He set aside his authority as their Lord and teacher and became their servant. Jesus said:
pastel By Chillon Leach “Appearing as one large cross and twelve smaller crosses, Last Supper represents Jesus and the twelve disciples (who will bear their own crosses after his crucifixion) at the last Passover meal. The sand color of the paper represents the home in which they met and the unleavened bread; the burgundy-colored pastel represents the wine, Jesus’ love, and his blood to be shed; and the blue pastel signifies hope in his resurrection.”
Please Take This Cup Away from Me
“To me, this moment epitomizes the human side of Jesus. He is in absolute spiritual and emotional torment, alone and afraid. He is truly a man of deep sorrows. Knowing what lies ahead and terrified, he cries out to his Father to let this thing pass away from him. Yet, in this, his moment of utter weakness and despair, Jesus’ love for his Father overcomes his own despondency, and he freely chooses, “Nevertheless, thy will be done.” I always imagine God the Father at this point reaching out through tears of love, embracing, holding, caressing, and strengthening his only begotten Son.”
Thorn Shadow “This is a meditation on the powerful ability of pared-down symbols to communicate profound truths. I believe that the juxtaposition of the materials (dark tar absorbing light, and fleshy, translucent wax holding and
Scourged
Station 8 “Not For Me” Jesus Comforts the Women of Jerusalem from Stations of the Cross “Not For Me” don’t … the clouds of my eyes part the world is tearing in two Jerusalem! Jerusalem! winter … winter …
 Jesus Stumbles Under the Weight of His Cross Woodblock printing, ephemera, acrylic paint, and mat medium By Rick Beerhorst "I am interested in the image of Jesus stumbling under his burden. Just the idea of Jesus needing help is a powerful one. Our culture is all about independence, being able to take care of yourself without having to ask for help from any one. I have printed a woodblock image on several different pieces of ephemera. I pieced them together like a collage to reflect the way Christ's suffering is refracted by the complexity of our present culture." Redemption, version 2 “Jesus literally ‘poured out himself to death’ so that he could ‘render himself as a guilt offering,’ ‘bearing the sins of many’ and thus ‘justify the The veil of the temple, violet in this image, as in Exodus 26:1, was torn from top to bottom, demonstrating that Christ had removed the barrier between God and man by fulfilling the requirement of the law as the second Adam. The iron door behind the cross symbolizes Jesus, who used the metaphor of the door to declare that he was the only way of salvation (John 10:9). The pallid green/brown areas illustrate the power of sin and death, which is visually broken by the central passage of warm, vibrant colors descending upon the skull. The pool of water signifies an end to the enmity between Jew and Gentile who, once separated, were united when the barrier (’the Law of commandments contained in ordinances’) was abolished in the flesh by Jesus Christ. He united both in the covenant of promise, ‘thus establishing peace’ by reconciling ‘them both in one body to God through the cross.’”
Mourning, Psalm 38:6 “This station of the cross represents the darkest hour of the Christian faith. Even though we know the triumph of the end of the story, it is appropriate to
 Easter Morning Acrylic By Susan Steinhaus Kimmel Easter Morning Acrylic By Susan Steinhaus Kimmel He is Risen.
Several things I’m reading now, John Piper being one of them. Posting one of his old sermons here. Some really good stuff. Worship: The Feast of Christian Hedonism Psalm 63:5-6 The revolt against hedonism has killed the spirit of worship in many churches. When you have the notion that high moral acts must be free from self-interest, then worship, which is one of the highest moral acts a human can perform, has to be conceived simply as duty. And when worship is reduced to a duty, it ceases to exist. One of the great enemies of worship in our church is our own misguided virtue. We have the vague notion that seeking our own pleasure is sin and therefore virtue itself imprisons the longings of our hearts and smothers the spirit of worship. For what is worship if it is not our joyful feasting upon the banquet of God’s glory? Worship is an inward feeling and outward action that reflects the worth of God. And the inward feeling is the essence, for Jesus said, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me. Worship is vain, empty, nothing, where the heart is unmoved. And I think it’s possible to describe in general the experience of the heart in worship. There are three general ways that the heart can respond in worship to God, and they usually overlap and coexist. 1) The heart can delight in the wealth of God’s glory. My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips, when I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night. (Psalm 63:5, 6) 2) The heart can long for that delight to be deeper and more intense and more consistent. As a hart longs for the flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? (Psalm 42:1, 2) 3) The heart can repent in sorrow when it feels neither the delight in God nor a longing for delight in God. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant, I was like a beast toward thee. (Psalms 73:21, 22) Therefore, if you feel no delight in the wealth of God’s glory, nor feel any longing to see and know God better, nor feel any sorrow that your longing and delight are so meager, then you are not worshipping. Isn’t it clear, then, that the person who thinks of virtue as overcoming self-interest and who thinks of vice as seeking our own pleasure, will scarcely be able to worship. For worship is the most hedonistic affair of life and must not be ruined by the least thought of disinterestedness. The great hindrance to worship is not that we are pleasure-seeking people, but that we are willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures. Jeremiah put it like this: My people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:11-13) The great barrier to worship among God’s people is not that we are always seeking our own satisfaction, but that our seeking is so weak and half-hearted that we settle for little sips at broken cisterns when the fountain of life is just over the next hill. One of my most important mentors in Christian Hedonism has been C.S. Lewis. I remember what a great discovery it was in 1968 to read the first page of his sermon, “The Weight of Glory.” It’s nothing more than what Jeremiah said, but it’s more up to date.
That’s it isn’t it? Our desire for happiness is too weak. We have settled for a home, a family, a few friends, a job, a TV and microwave and Apple II, an occasional night out, a yearly vacation. We have accustomed ourselves to such small, unexciting, short-lived, inadequate pleasure that our capacity for joy has shriveled. And therefore our worship has shriveled. But I have a dream for Bethlehem and what a worship service could be if everyone in it were a Christian Hedonist. I dream of an hour a week utterly unlike any other hour; a weekly corporate appointment with the living God. A room filled with people who from the bottom of their heart say, O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is. (Psalm 63:1) I dream about a gathering of people who love the conversation of Christian friendship, but who, for the sake of the depth of that very conversation, give it up for one hour and during the organ It is not merely a dream. It is God’s will for us, and it is happening. A man came to see me last week who had visited our morning worship a couple times. He said he just wanted to encourage me to keep on, and then tears welled up in his eyes and he said, “I went home and cried because we don’t worship at my church like you do at yours.” I was surprised because I know how far we have to go. He had been nurtured as a new believer in a very informal house church. So I said, “Then our service must seem really stiff to you, since everything is pretty much planned out.” But he said, “No, no. It’s not the form or structure. It’s whether there’s life. Whether the leadership and people are really meeting God.” And he’s right. There are dead charismatic churches and there are living liturgical churches. The form is just a track to keep us all going in the same direction; whether the engine of worship bullets along this track or sits cold in the station depends on whether we are Christian Hedonists or not. So what can we do to make this dream come true at Bethlehem? Two things: one intellectual, the other emotional. We will have to be convinced intellectually that the objections to Christian Hedonism are not valid, and we will have to awaken new and powerful emotions in our hearts for God. Let me address four objections to Christian Hedonism as it relates to worship. 1) First, Christian Hedonism does not mean that God becomes a means to help us get worldly pleasures. The pleasure a Christian Hedonist seeks is the pleasure which is in God himself. He is the end of our search for joy, not the means to some further end. “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4). He is our exceeding joy, not the streets of gold, or reunion with relatives, or any other blessing of earth or heaven. Last week I argued from Hebrews 11:6 that you cannot please God unless you come to him for reward, and today I stress again, the reward is fellowship with God himself. 2) Second, Christian Hedonism is aware that self-consciousness kills joy and therefore kills worship. As soon as you turn your eyes in on yourself and become conscious of experiencing joy, it’s gone. The Christian Hedonist knows that the secret of joy is self-forgetfulness. Yes, we go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art for the joy of seeing the paintings. But the counsel of Christian Hedonism is: set your whole attention on the paintings and not on your emotions or you will ruin the whole experience. Therefore, in worship there must be a radical orientation on God, not ourselves. 3) Third, Christian Hedonism does not make a god out of pleasure. It says that you have already made a god out of whatever you find most pleasure in. 4) Fourth, Christian Hedonism does not put us above God when we seek him out of self-interest. A patient is not greater than his doctor because he comes to him to be made well. A child is not greater than his father when he wants the fun of playing together. Suppose on December 21 I bring home to Noël 15 long-stemmed red roses to celebrate our anniversary. And when she says, “They’re beautiful, Johnny, thank you,” I respond, “Don’t mention it. It’s my duty.” With that word, all moral value vanishes. Yes, it is my duty, but unless I am moved by a spontaneous affection for her as a person, the very exercise of my duty belittles her. That is what has to be changed in our worship. We belittle God when we go through the outward motions of worship and take no pleasure in his person. My wife is exalted and not belittled when I say to her, “The reason I would like to take you out alone tonight is because I get so much pleasure out of being with you.” The chief end of man is not just to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. And if we don’t enjoy him, we don’t glorify him. Therefore, I say again that my dream for Bethlehem to become a worshiping people will only come true if we become Christian Hedonists who are not satisfied with mud pies in the slums. I hope that before we are done with this series, you will be convinced of that in your mind. But that would not be enough. To become a worshipping people new and powerful emotions for God have to be awakened in our hearts. Unless we cultivate our God-given powers of emotion and imagination, they will shrivel up and die, and so will our worship. Let’s not let happen to us what happened to Charles Darwin. Near the end of his life he wrote an autobiography for his children and expressed one regret. He wrote, Up to the age of 30 or beyond it, poetry of many kinds . . . gave me great pleasure . . . Formerly pictures gave me considerable (pleasure) and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry . . . I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music . . . I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight it formerly did . . . My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.
God will awaken your heart if you ask him and seek for him as for hidden treasure. Last Monday night I was in a jet flying back from Chicago. I was almost alone in the plane, so I sat beside an eastern window. The pilot said there was a thunderstorm over Lake Michigan and into Wisconsin, and so he would skirt it to the west. I sat there staring out into total blackness when all of a sudden the whole sky was brilliant with light and a cavern of white clouds fell away two, three, four miles beneath the plane and then vanished. A second later a mammoth white tunnel of light exploded from north to south across the horizon, and again vanished into blackness. And pretty soon the lightning was almost constant and volcanoes of light burst up out of cloud shaped ravines and from behind distant white mountains. I sat there shaking my head almost in unbelief. “Christ, if these are but the sparks from the sharpening of your sword, what will be the day of your appearing!” And I remembered the word of our Lord: As the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man. (Matthew 24:27) And even now as I recollect that sight, the word “glory” is full of feeling for me and I thank God that again and again he has awakened my heart to desire him, to worship him. And he will do it for you if you really want him to. © Desiring God Website: desiringGod.org
I don’t know why, but I seem to get stuck on this particular point in time….well to admit it, all points in time historically. What I love to see is the Hand of God as He has providentially moved. The fact remains is that God ordains every aspect of our present lives, every step ordered . He does it infinitely, daily. So in light of knowing that, I do find great comfort in looking back at where I’ve come from and how God has gotten me here, and thus rejoice in His infinite wisdom in doing so. And to further this, to see His hand move quickly, covering years, decades, centuries. To me, that is pure joy. The Great Awakening was a watershed event in the life of the American people. Before it was over, it had swept the colonies of the Eastern seaboard, transforming the social and religious life of land. Although the name is slightly misleading–the Great Awakening was not one continuous revival, rather it was several revivals in a variety of locations–it says a great deal about the state of religion in the colonies. For the simple reality is that one cannot be awakened unless you have fallen asleep. Neither the Anglicans who came to dominate religious life in Virginia after royal control was established over Jamestown, nor the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay, were terribly successful in putting down roots. The reality was that on the frontier, the settled parish system of England– which was employed by Puritan and Anglican alike–proved difficult to transplant. Unlike the compact communities of the old world, the small farms and plantations of the new spread out into the wilderness, making both communication and ecclesiastical discipline difficult. Because people often lived great distances from a parish church, membership and participation suffered. In addition, on the frontier concern for theological issues faded before the concern for survival and wrestling a living from a hard and difficult land. Because the individual was largely on his own, and depended on himself for survival, authoritarian structures of any sort–be they governmental or ecclesiastical–met with great resistance. As a result, by the second and third generations, the vast majority of the population was outside the membership of the church. The First Signs of Awakening The sparks of revival were struck in New England. Solomon Stoddard’s sermons in Northampton, Massachusetts had led to revivals breaking out as early as 1679. And after that, periodic revivals would occur and then die out. One of the reasons they would be extinguished was the smothering influence of the Enlightenment. With the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica in the 17th century, traditional religious formulations had been under pressure. That is because implicit in the work of Newton and others was the assumption that human beings had the ability to discover the secrets of the universe and thereby exert some control over their own destiny. If human beings could in fact think the thoughts of God–if they could discover and read the blueprints whereby God had made and ordered the world–the result was a lessening of the gulf between God and man. This tended to undercut traditional Calvinism which held that the gap between the Deity and his creatures was quite large. This affirmation of human ability and reason had an extremely corrosive effect on the reigning orthodoxy which held that one’s destiny was solely in God’s hands. The result was a growing emphasis on man and his morality, with religion becoming more rational and less emotional. One of those who attacked this growing rationality, and who was also one of the principle figures in the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards. Edwards has received a bad press for his “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” In that sermon he used the image of a spider dangling by a web over a hot fire to describe the human predicament. His point was that at any moment, our hold on life could break and we’d be plunged into fires of eternal damnation. But if you read his sermons, you will find that he spoke quietly, reasonably, and logically. Indeed, he was dry and even a bit boring. But he began to experience a harvest of conversions that were accompanied by exaggerated behavior. People would bark, shout, and run when they were converted. Why did people listen to Edwards? Why did his preaching provoke such a response? For one thing, he was speaking about a matter they were vitally interested in. If I were to tell you I heard on the radio on the way over that someone had found a cure for cancer, you would want to know the details. And so it was for the Puritans who were growing deeply concerned by what they perceived to be a striking decline in piety. The youth of the second and third generation were given to mirth and frivolity and would spend the greater part of night in co-ed parties. They would go riding in wagons under layers of quilts and blankets. Edwards and others were deeply concerned about these excursions and the impact they might have on the state of their morals. And there is reason to believe that Edwards had cause to be concerned about these activities. Evidently something was taking place under these quilts because there was a striking rise in the number of children conceived out of wedlock which confirmed in the Puritan’s mind that a general decline in piety was occurring. The new generation had inherited the Puritan theocracy, but had begun to forget it, and the older generation was gravely concerned about this development. They had come to this country to found a biblical commonwealth, but their vision did not seem to be shared by community’s youth. And then quite by surprise there was a tremendous outpouring of response to the preaching of Edwards. This movement of the Spirit surprised people because it produced something unexpected: people professing conversion. What Edwards said in these sermons was pure Calvinism. “You can’t control salvation.” But Puritans heard him say, “if you try, God will aid your salvation.” Here’s one example. Jonathan Edwards talked about “Pressing into the Kingdom”. “It was,” he said, “not a thing impossible.” By that, Edwards was referred to God’s power to save whomever he pleases. But what the Puritans heard was there was a chance they could achieve election. Phrases like “It is in your power to use means of grace” and “One can strive against corruption” were similarly misunderstood. Edwards wanted to make the point that salvation ultimately is in the hands of God, and that he empowers the elect to resist evil. But people heard something else. And they responded to what they viewed as an invitation to seek after salvation. Despite the response to his preaching, Edwards did not remain popular forever. His downfall occurred when a group of young people got hold of an obstetrics book, and looked at the illustrations of the female anatomy. It was, I guess, the eighteenth century equivalent of looking at a Playboy. In any event, Edwards responded to his incident by preaching against it, and condemning those involved from the pulpit. As a result, he alienated the parents who drove him from his position. Exiled to Stockbridge to work with the Indians, he died there. George Whitefield Another principle figure in the Awakening was George Whitefield. Known as the “Great Itinerant,” Whitefield was an associate of John Wesley in England. He had a loud voice, and it is said one conversion occurred 3 miles from where he was preaching. He was a dramatic man who it was said could pronounce the word “Mesopotamia” in such a way that it could melt an audience. He would always say it at least once in sermon, no matter the topic. One of those who heard him was Ben Franklin. Even though he was a worldly man, he had his pockets picked by Whitefield. See: Franklin, Autobiography, p. 118 Whitefield traveled up and down the eastern seaboard carrying the Awakening with him, and he offered a new quality to the prevailing view of how one gains citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The key test of one’s election, Whitefield asserted, was whether one had had an emotional experience of conversion. This, of course, represented a reaction to the Enlightenment. Like many of the evangelists, Whitefield stood over against a cold, rational religion that appealed only to the mind. His emphasis on the conversion experience had a leveling effect. It served to remind everyone that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. And it made the experience of saving grace seem of greater relevance than the petty quarrels over ecclesiastical structure that seemed to divide Christians. An example of this functional ecumenism can be found in a sermon Whitefield preached in Philadelphia. looked to heaven and asked: “Father Abraham, whom have you in heaven? Any Episcopalians? No! Any Presbyterians? No! Any Independents or Methodists? No, No No! Whom have you there? We don’t know those names here. All who are here are Christians…Oh, is this the case? The God help us to forget your party names and to become Christians in deed and truth.” In essence, Whitefield reduced Christianity to it’s lowest common denominator–those sinners who love Jesus will go to heaven. Denominational distinctives were down played. This theme was picked up by Samuel Davies, one of the principle leaders of the Awakening in Virginia. “My brethren, I would now warn you against this wretched, mischievous spirit of party…A Christian! a Christian! Let that by your highest distinction…”. Whitefield preached in terms of everyday experience. We have one volume of his sermons in short hand. (Most other sermons were edited when written down and his illustrations left out) One sermon told about a woman who was dying, and raised up on her death bed, and instead of asking about Christ, asked “What is trumps.” This led him to launch off onto the subject of cards. Reaction to the Awakening Whitefield also attacked established ministers for leading their flocks into Hell by not demanding an experience salvation of people, a theme others would pick up on such as Gilbert Tennant who preached on the dangers of an unconverted ministry. This led the established clergy to attack Whitefield and the unchecked enthusiasm of the revivals in general, and the Great Awakening in particular. Leader of this counterattack was Charles Chauncy who led the attack from the pulpit of First Church, Boston. His sermon, Enthusiasm Described and Cautioned Against, sparked the opposition to action. Anyone, Chauncy claimed, can have one good sermon. Established preachers could not compete with these itinerant evangelists, and their preaching threatened to undermine loyalty of parishioners. And they tended to view these evangelists as ignorant and filled with zeal. Indeed, some carried the revival to extremes. James Davenport–was one of the enthusiasts who fit the stereotype. He burned books, and claimed to be able to distinguish the elect from the damned. He greeted the former as “brethren” and the latter as “neighbors.” He was obviously mentally unbalanced, and leaders of the Awakening tried to keep their distance from him. The rising opposition to the Awakening had a major impact on the direction of American Christianity. The old Puritan synthesis of head and heart–of a religion that appealed to both mind and spirit–broke apart. The “Old Lights”–as followers of Chauncy came to be called–unencumbered by the emotionalism of the revivalists moved in the direction of a greater rationalism in theology, and would latter give rise to Unitarianism. While the evangelists–cut adrift from their intellectual heritage–were often given to excess. The Phases of the Awakening In the North, where the Awakening began, revival tended to be an urban phenomenon where flamboyant and highly emotional preaching appeared in Puritan churches. The compromises of the Half-way covenant were swept aside, and the notion of the church as a body of saints, was reclaimed. Standards of membership were increased, and yet, membership still grew. In the South, the Great Awakening was more of a frontier phenomenon than was the case in the Middle Colonies or New England. In areas that were nominally Anglican (the tidewater) it had little impact. In part this was because the residents of the tidewater had just enough religion to inoculate them from catching the real thing, and also because authorities were better able to enforce the established church, and protect it from the itinerant evangelists. But in the piedmont and mountains of Virginia and North Carolina the revival had a wide open field. These areas were populated by less prosperous settlers from the tidewater moving beyond the fall line, and by Scotch-Irish and Germans coming down the Shenandoah Valley. The result was a population that had few ties to the Anglican establishment. One of the principle leaders of the Awakening in the South was Samuel Davies who came to Hanover, Virginia in 1748. The revival in Hanover began when a Samuel Morris began to read sermons of Whitefield and Luther to his neighbors. The result was striking. Conversions were numerous, and special “reading houses were built” because the crowds would not fit in private homes.” When Davies arrived the Awakening surged. He was the great organizer and propagator of the Revival. A Presbyterian, he fought for the legal toleration of dissenters. Although his preaching was of the moderate variety, he ignited the fires of revival, and under his leadership Presbyterianism rapidly took root. In fact, the Hanover Presbytery was the first to be organized on a continuing basis in the South. Another leader in the Awakening was Shubal Stearns who brought the Separate Baptist movement to the region. Methodists gained a foothold in the South largely through the preaching of an Anglican clergyman with Methodist sympathies: Some Results of the Great Awakening (1) One of the major results of the Great Awakening was to unify 4/5ths of Americans in a common understanding of the Christian faith and life. Americans–North and South–shared a common evangelical view of life. There were no “church builders” . Those enlightened were encouraged to gather with local believers in local smaller congregations (2) Dissent and dissenters enjoyed greater respect than ever before. Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians–all non-established groups–took root and grew. Despite the fact that these denominational lines remained, they shared a common evangelical voice. Typical was the sentiment of John Wesley: “Dost thou love and fear God? It is enough! I give thee the right had of fellowship. This catholicity of spirit became common. (3) Great emphasis came to be placed on education. George Whitefield founded the school that would latter become the University of Pennsylvania, and UNC was originally a Presbyterian effort. Indeed, the first generation of faculty members there were all Presbyterian ministers. The focus on education was rooted in a concern for souls, but it also reflected the fact that if the ground is level at the foot of the cross, education should be available for all as well. (4) A greater sense of responsibility for Indians and Slaves emerged from the revival. George Whitefield, for instance, was among the first to preach to Blacks. The evangelical experience was common to both whites and blacks, making both aware that the ground level at foot of cross. This led most evangelicals to denounce slavery as sinful, and at the first General Conference of Methodism, slave holding was viewed as grounds for immediate expulsion from the society. (5) The Awakening reinterpreted the meaning of the covenant between God and his creature. In Puritan theology the focus was on what God has done for us. In the aftermath of the Awakening, the new emphasis was on what man can do in response to God’s great gift. The responsibility for salvation is not God’s but man’s. (5) A complete dissolving of the theocracy occurred. The establishment in Virginia and North Carolina began to fall apart. Ministers could no longer control the direction of religious life. It had been democratized and made accessible by people. (6) There was a break down in theological consensus. The New Lights (the revivalists) versus the Old Lights (traditional orthodox). Those who wanted to adapt the faith to changing times and circumstances versus those who wanted to hang on the old order. (8) It served to revived a sense of religious mission. Everyone believed there was some greater purpose behind the revivals, that God’s Kingdom must be near. There are some parts of the Bible preachers often avoid because people just don’t take to them to kindly. Besides there is so much to preach about anyway so why bring the tough things up, right? Right; and one such subject is family. Blood is thicker than water, family first. These are things that the world speaks of family and they are true and right and good! Who on earth would ever go against that idea of family first. That would be crazy. Luke reports in chapter 14 (26-27) of Jesus addressing a large crowd following Him “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” He says a few more things to the crowd and moves on. These Jews lived on family relationships. Without them they would die. Take a look at Ruth. Go into the temple and read the lineage of anyone back to anyone. Family was The most important thing they had. You were WHO you were! Just ask a Jew about a Samaritan, a gentile, a roman!! It was easy to hate them, they weren’t family! But hate family, no, never, nohow, not in a million years! We are so fond of sayings so I’ll use one here: “when one door shuts another door opens”. That is what the body of Christ , the Church family, is; love. The love of Christ acted out every day in every situation in our lives, our actions, yes even our thoughts. By this shall all men know you are Mine, by your love of the Saints. We celebrated the life of my mother Monday who passed away last Thursday. She was my first Christ in this world. She was my first gospel of grace. She was my first glimpse of love for others (except the good chocolates, those were hers). I will miss her terribly for a short time and celebrate for eternity with her the salvation she made sure we were led to. And know that I will be celebrating with all those other saints that have placed their faith in Christ, and by grace have sought the true treasure in Heaven.  Mom and me  Before being hung for his faith, de Bres wrote his wife a still stirring letter that showed his resolve. It goes as follows: My dear and well-beloved wife in our Lord Jesus. Your grief and anguish are the cause of my writing you this letter. I most earnestly pray you not to be grieved beyond measure . . . . We knew when we married that we might not have many years together, and the Lord has graciously given us seven. If the Lord had wished us to live together longer, he could easily have caused it to be so. But such was not his pleasure. Let his good will be done . . . . Moreover, consider that I have not fallen into the hands of my enemies by chance, but by the providence of God . . . . All these considerations have made my heart glad and peaceful, and I pray you, my dear and faithful companion, to be glad with me, and to thank the good God for what he is doing, for he does nothing but what is altogether good and right . . . . I pray you then to be comforted in the Lord, to commit yourself and your affairs to him, he is the husband of the widow and the father of the fatherless, and he will never leave nor forsake you . . . . Good-bye, Catherine, my well-beloved! I pray my God to comfort you, and give you resignation to his holy will. Your faithful husband, Guido de Brès. The secret of his heroism. This is the deep spirituality of the Reformed Christians of the sixteenth century, which radiated the secret of his extraordinary courage and disregard of death. God said through faith. A faith that was based not on external evidence of miracles or historical evidence. These, according to the mood of the era, were rather on the side of their enemies. His faith lies only and solely on the value and inerrancy of Scripture, read, accepted and performed in a natural way. They argued, moreover, his great trust, submissive and patient, in the sovereignty of God, they had security for all events, good and bad, are permitted or ordained by God, and towards the good of those who love Him, in this life or the next, and to accept God’s plan and promote his glory is the ideal of all true Christians at all costs. It is hard for us to imagine putting our lives on the line just to proclaim the gospel of salvation by grace alone. Today we can easily confess, proclaim, preach, and pundittate almost any gospel you want without consequence. But in the day you were NOT allowed to have any other beliefs than those of Rome. In fact there was something of an inquisition going on to try and purge the world of this strange NEW doctrine of God’s grace. One such saint that offered himself to the hangman was Guido de Bres.
 Guido de Bres and friend in prison Dear brothers, |
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Saint Paul
Also, experience tells us that not everyone does well in a large church. Some souls get lost in the crowd, while some do so on purpose. Others do not relish the attention they get in a small church — the natural accountability is too glaring for them. A large church may offer great programs (which, by the way, often bless smaller churches), while most saints feel more needed in a smaller church. A large church has multiple and specialized staff, while in a small church every member can relate to the pastor as to a personal trainer of his soul.
Last Supper
By John Barron
embodying light) seems to echo the sense of weighty darkness in the narrative of the events leading up to the Passion, existing at once with a glowing sense of light pointing to the transcendent nature of the crucifixion, and the promise it held.”
“This painting communicates the intense pain Christ suffered and the raw emotion he felt during the whipping he endured prior to his crucifixion. It also portrays his purity and holiness, that he was undeserving of such punishment. The nails around the image portend his imminent crucifixion. But Jesus Christ’s spirit rose above the pain and suffering, because he knew it was a part of the Father’s plan for people’s salvation.”
many.’ God was ‘thus pleased to crush him’. Without Jesus’ death and his subsequent resurrection and ascension, the Christian is, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:12—19, ‘of all men most to be pitied.’
At His Feet Metal with acrylic patina By Anthony Novak “Jesus, being without sin, took upon himself the iniquities of the world, so that all who put their trust in him will be saved from the law of sin and death. At the foot of the Cross are life, hope, and salvation for all who believe.”
mourn deeply when we contemplate this stage. This image, of a tombstone in France, represents a disciple’s tender mourning as Jesus died and his lifeless body was taken from the cross. I can imagine those who held him at the foot of the cross, and how they must have softly touched his body as they were filled with sorrow too deep to contain. The expression on this statue captures this and reminds us to not jump too quickly to the resurrection without soaking in the depth of the sacrifice Jesus made.”
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
prelude bow in unashamed earnestness of prayer that the Spirit of God might descend upon our worship and shake this place with his power. I dream of a gathered family of believers on Sunday morning as genuinely happy in God as families are on the first day of vacation, or around a big turkey at Thanksgiving, or beside the Christmas tree when the gifts are given out. Unfettered hearts of joy, free to say, “Amen!” when the choir has carried us to God, or when the organ praise has enthroned the King of kings, or when the preacher speaks some incomparable gospel truth. I dream of an hour together where grudges melt and old festering wounds are healed in the warmth of the joy of the Lord. An hour with God where battered saints absorb the strength and power of the Lord to re-enter their work revived and strong on Monday. I dream of a people gathered, hungry to hear the Word of God, and to make a joyful noise to the God of their salvation with song and organ and piano and trumpets, and flutes and strings and cymbals and shouts. I dream of one hour a week with you where we encounter God together in such a real and unmistakable way that strangers will enter and say, “God is surely in this place!”
Brothers and sisters, please don’t let that happen to you! Don’t let your Christianity be the grinding out of general doctrinal laws from collections of biblical facts. Don’t let your first love grow cold. Don’t let the childlike awe and wonder die. Don’t let the scenery and poetry and music of your relationship with God shrivel up and mean nothing to you anymore. You have capacities for joy of which you scarcely know. God will call them forth. Open your eyes to his glory. It is all around you. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”
The Great Awakening, (as if every awakening isn’t)
Devereux Jarratt. Both Baptists and Methodists had an advantage over the Presbyterians and soon surpassed them in numbers. Where Presbyterians insisted on an educated ministry and ordered worship (sounds funny, but still do), Methodists and Baptists were better able to address the needs of frontier communities with lay preachers who could go where there was need, and who could be quickly deployed without waiting for them to complete their education. Methodists and Baptists were also more open to the emotional and unrestrained nature of worship in the revivals, while Presbyterians were uncomfortable with what they viewed to be the excesses of the revivals.
How did he get there you ask? In trying to show Philip King of Spain that this new (not really new) faith was not against the crown, de Bres brought a copy of the Belgic Confession of faith (which he authored), to him for approval. And for standing on grace plus nothing for salvation, he was sentenced to death. Below is an eye witness acount of the Martyrdom which occured on May 31, 1567. De Bres was hung for his faith after spending several weeks in the lowest part of a prison called Brunain in Valenciennes, which today is part of France. De Bres’ cell was the place where the prison sewage ended up.