It’s a bit of a strange word picture, the kind that causes you to wonder and to feel just a bit uncomfortable. But it says volumes about what you need and about what it is that God is doing.
If you’re confused about what God’s agenda is in your life, or if it doesn’t always seem like his promises are being fulfilled, then this strange little prayer from Psalm 51 is helpful and clarifying. In his psalm of repentance after his sin against God, Bathsheba, and Uriah, David writes this provocative little prayer, “Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.” What in the world is he talking about and how in the world can it give perspective and hope to you and me?
As an Anglican pastor, I bear scars from the war with "universalism" inside the Episcopal Church. I also have endured the battering of Bishop John Spong and his effort to "rescue the gospel from fundamentalists." And when I saw Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, I found myself quoting former Yankee great Yogi Berra: "It's like déjà vu all over again."
Have you ever spoken to an unbeliever who knew some of his Bible—just enough to be angry and confused? If so, you probably heard questions (accusations) like these: “What kind of God orders the slaughter of entire cities—women, children, and animals included—without mercy? Why does God allow so much pain, suffering, and evil in the world? How do you reconcile the love of God with the eternal flames of hell?”
So often, the attribute of God that confuses unbelievers most is His love. They can’t fathom the depth of God’s love in the Incarnation and Crucifixion of Christ. But beyond that, they refuse to see other expressions of God’s love, expressions that sometimes escape our notice too. Here’s John MacArthur to explain...
Listen to an excerpt, download or listen to the full message at: www.gty.org.
If one can be an evangelical Christian, and especially an evangelical pastor or leader, and not believe that an able-minded adult (whether raised Baptist, Lutheran, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic or atheist) must repent of sin and place their faith in Christ in this life in order to go to Heaven, then…what is left that an evangelical must believe to still be an evangelical?
This video excerpt is a powerful illustration from Francis Chan, on living life from the perspective of eternity.
'But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.' Philippians 3:13-14
"I think we’re all finding out that this is a very dangerous planet to live on. You...you can get caught in a war, a war that you really had nothing to do with and become a victim of the hatred and the greed and the struggle for power by people in high positions. We are watching essentially war stretching across the Middle East, very much aware of it. Now that war engages virtually the world in a no-fly zone of Libya, a coalition of nations coming against Muammar Gaddafi. Before it’s all over, there will be thousands if not tens of thousands who die. That’s really nothing new for us.
It’s a dangerous world as well because you can be the victim of an earthquake, or a tsunami. You can be the victim of a famine because you can’t get to the food or the food can’t get to you because of a natural disaster. You can be the victim of a fire, or a flood, as we see repeated again and again throughout the world.
In spite of the fact that living in this world has its bliss and its blessing, and in spite of the fact that our world, our planet bears the marks of divine creation, and the benevolence of God is in the very fabric of life on this planet, in spite of the fact that riches are provided for us and provisions are provided for us, the backside of all those provisions puts us in really imminent danger. We can be killed by disease. We can be poisoned in our food. We can be radiated to death. All of these things are the backside of the blessings. We create civilizations, we create crops, we create dams to dam up the water. We harness all the resources in the world and yet we have to do everything we can to create the prevention of those very things destroying us. It is a very dangerous place to live. Disaster is all around us. War and death are ever present from a myriad of ways.
This, by the way is no surprise to anybody who understands the Bible. Human history is no surprise to God and it is no surprise to our Lord Jesus. If you go to Mark chapter 13, we’re going to find Jesus on the last day of His public ministry in Jerusalem, Wednesday of Passion Week. On Thursday He will prepare to celebrate the Passover with His disciples. On Friday He will be crucified. On Sunday He will be raised from the dead.
But here on this last day of public ministry, He has brought that public ministry to an end and now He is speaking to His disciples as of verse 43 in chapter 12, He calls His disciples to Him. And for the remainder of this day and the next day, He focuses on talking to them.
In this portion that is recorded for us by Matthew in Matthew 24 and 25, and also by Luke as we have recently seen in Luke 21, He gives a picture of history to come. This is prophetic. It is predictive. And it will be very familiar to you because this is exactly the way history has gone." -John MacArthur
The exquisite star Sirius is the premier gem of our sparkling winter skies [that’s it at the top-right of the photo]. Its name means “the Sparkling or Scorching One,” although it is commonly called the Dog Star because of its location in the constellation of Canis Major, the Big Dog. Sirius is the brightest star visible from Earth (except, of course, for the Sun). This is due in part to its “nearby” location. Sirius is a mere 8.6 light years distant from the solar system. That’s the distance a light beam would travel in 8.6 years at the speed of 186,282 miles per second—about 50 trillion miles! Through careful study, astronomers have concluded that Sirius is about twice as massive as the Sun but about twenty-five times more luminous. This makes it a whopping 660,000 times more massive than Earth! It has a tiny companion star, no larger than Earth, called the “Pup,” which is a white dwarf star. More than a hundred times smaller than the Sun, it has nearly the same mass, making it extraordinarily dense. A single teaspoon of its material would weight more than fifteen hundred tons!
Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God. Take any spot in the sky, and see that this is so. Whether we gaze upon stars, planets, galaxies, or nebulae, day after day and night after night they speak in loud, eloquent tongues of His power, knowledge, beauty, and glory. The Psalm says: “There is no speech, nor are there words”—what words could ever adequately describe His glory? “Yet their voice goes out through all the earth”—and results in the echoes of praise from men and women, great and small, old and young, from every nation, on every continent, in every age. Indeed, the starry heavens are declaring at this very moment that our God is magnificent beyond comprehension. Listen to them! Hear how their endless hosts strive day after day and night after night to declare the least part, the smallest measure, of His glory. It is never enough; it never will be; it never can be. He is infinite. Have you heard their voices? Have you joined their chorus?
We understand freedom in this nation because we live in it. We understand freedom in the spiritual sense to some extent because it's a biblical truth. But just as our political freedom can be abused, so our spiritual freedom can be abused. And the Word of God gives us some controlling factors to prevent such abuse. And I know these are things that many of us have understood, perhaps many of us have not and all of us need to be reminded of. I see in the church today the same kind of abuse of Christian freedom that I see in our nation. I look at a church across the land where there is very little concern for holiness of life, where Christian leaders are falling in to gross immorality and it's a rather epidemic kind of thing. It goes on all the time.
Paul David Washer is a Baptist minister and founder of the HeartCry Missionary Society, a Christian society that supports indigenous missionary work. Converted while attending the University of Texas studying to become an oil and gas lawyer, Washer completed his undergraduate studies and subsequently attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where he received a Master of Divinity degree. Washer left the states shortly after graduation and began his post-seminary ministry in Peru, where he served as a missionary for 10 years, after which he returned to the United States. It was in his time there that he founded the HeartCry Missionary Society to support Peruvian Church planters.
On July 4, our nation celebrates its independence with waving flags, picnics, and parades. Some churches deck their sanctuary with red, white, and blue, and devote the worship service to the honor of the state. Other Christians virtually ignore this or any other national holiday. This raises the question, "How does Christianity tell us to think about patriotism?"
Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)
The Bible is the only inspired, inerrant authority for Christian Faith, and it contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.
Sola Fide (Faith Alone)
Justification is by faith alone. The full righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith (comprised of His active and passive obedience) is the sole ground of our acceptance by God, by which our sins are remitted.
Solus Christus (Christ Alone)
Christ is Prophet, Priest and King; the only mediator through whose work we are redeemed.
Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)
Salvation comes by God's grace or "unmerited favor" alone — not as something merited by the sinner. This means that salvation is an unearned gift from God.
Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)
All glory is to be due to God alone, since salvation is accomplished solely through His will and action — not only the gift of the all-sufficient atonement of Jesus on the cross but also the gift of faith in that atonement, created in the heart of the believer by the Holy Spirit.
Based on SCRIPTURE alone, we can affirm that justification is by GRACE alone, through FAITH alone, because of CHRIST alone, for the GLORY OF GOD alone.
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