I’m sure you’ve heard this old rhyme before, but I think it’s worth posting:
Said the Sparrow to the Robin,
“I should really like to know
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the Robin to the Sparrow,
“Friend, I think that it must be
That they have no heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and me.”
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 5:26, ESV).
Arnold Dallimore’s book on George Whitefield has been one of the most enjoyable and spiritually profitable biographies I have encountered in some time. I was especially struck by what I read today concerning Whitefield’s popularity and humility.
Although his ministry in England drew the contempt and jealousy of many clergymen (couldn’t help but notice the similarity here to Lloyd-Jones), Whitefield’s early days of ministry were marked by an immense popularity among the common people. Whitefield viewed such popularity as a trial for which he was desperately in need of the grace of God.
Said Whitefield:
The tide of popularity began to run very high. In a short time I could no longer walk on foot as usual, but was constrained to go in a coach from place to place, to avoid the hosannas of the multitude. They grew quite extravagant in their applauses, and had it not been for my compassionate High Priest, popularity would have destroyed me. I used to plead with Him to take me by the hand and lead me unhurt through this fiery furnace. He heard my request and gave me to see the vanity of all commendations but His own.
Again, he prayed:
O Heavenly Father, for Thy dear Son’s sake, keep me from climbing. Let me hate preferment. For Thine infinite mercies’ sake, let me love a low contemptible life, and never think to compound matters between the happiness of this world and the next.
I believe that for Whitefield these were neither mere words nor petty posturing out of a desire to be seen as humble. His very life confirmed his prayer. Let us remember that even though multitudes begged him to stay and large offers were made to him to remain in England, Whitefield chose to board a ship and sail for the obscurity of a small American colony in the wilderness.
Standing on that ship Whitefield declared:
I considered it was the Divine will that placed me here, and therefore I rejoiced. He is unworthy the name of a Christian who is not as willing to hide himself when God commands, as to act in a public capacity.
Whether we are pastors or laymen, most of us labor in relative obscurity. In the midst of a celebrity-driven culture that at times seeps into modern Christianity, may the Lord grant us to be content to decrease if through it he should increase.
Our family is now back home after spending the last two weeks enjoying some focused time together and coughing up $4.45 a gallon for gas as we traveled around these great United States.
We received some much needed R&R in Mississippi as we spent time with family over the holiday. It was refreshing to be surrounded by a green and lush part of the country that God has chosen to water (unlike here !), and of course it’s fun to hear those southerners lengthen and re-accent their syllables: We shot off fah-uhr wurks on the fourth of JU-ly.
We were also very blessed to see some friends and dear believers in southwest Missouri. To get outside of your local place of ministry and see God working in the lives of other people in different places is so encouraging.
One of the highlights of our trip was this past Sunday. On our way back toward Colorado we stopped in Lenexa, KS to attend Providence Community Church, which is part of the Sovereign Grace family of churches. Pastor Matthew Hoffman brought a wonderful, joyful, and Christ-centered message out of Philippians 4 on peacemaking. What a blessing it was to be in the presence of a body of believers who are seeking to make Christ and his gospel the center of everything.
That should be the goal of all of our lives, and I am thankful to our great God for using these last two weeks to refocus me toward that great end.
In preparing to preach this past week, I came across a fascinating story about Tim Winton, who is one of Australia’s best-known novelists. He is also a committed Christian, and his story of how his family came to Christ is told by John Dickson in his book, Promoting the Gospel.*
Winton’s father was a police officer, who in the mid 1960s, was the victim of a drunk driving accident that knocked him off his motorcycle and left him in a coma for several weeks. Upon returning home, he was unable to care for himself. He was a large man, and his wife had trouble bathing him. Tim was only five years old and unable to help.
News of what happened spread through the community, and one day there was a knock at the door. There stood Len Thomas, a Christian who had come from the local church and just wanted to help in any way he could. What he did was remarkable. Winton relates the story:
“He just showed up, and he used to carry my dad from bed and put him in the bath and he used to bathe him, which in the 60s in Perth in the suburbs was not the sort of thing you saw every day.”
Winton went on to say:
“It really touched me in that, regardless of theology or anything else, watching a grown man bother, for nothing, to show up and wash a sick man—you know, it really affected me.”
How greatly did it affect Tim and his family? So much so that Winton said this “strangely sacrificial act” was the single greatest thing God used to bring his family to Christ.
Now, I am aware of the objection some will raise: “It is the Word that brings people to Christ.” True enough, and at some point the family must have heard and responded to the gospel proclamation. But that does not nullify the fact that God may use our gospel-shaped lives to adorn the doctrine of Christ (Matt 5:16; Titus 2:20; 1 Peter 3:1).
As I read this story I couldn’t help but think of how the Lord of glory, who owes us nothing, left everything, and laid down his life to wash those who could not wash themselves, and how beautifully this was modeled by Len Thomas before the eyes of the Winton family, including the eyes of a little five year old boy. I also couldn’t help but wonder what eyes may be watching me.
*The information provided by Dickson in his book was taken from an interview with Winton on ABC’s Enough Rope.
This week’s questions focus on the person and nature of God. He is the one and only True and Living God, who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let us be encouraged to fix our minds upon his greatness as we prepare to sing his praises, call upon his name, and hear his word together with his people this Lord’s day.
Question 7
Q. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit (John 4:24), infinite (Job 11:7-9), eternal (Ps 110:2), and unchangeable (Jas 1:17) in his being (Ex 33:14), wisdom (Ps 147:5), power (Rev 4:8), holiness (Rev 15:4), justice, goodness, and truth (Ex 34:6).
Question 8
Q. Are there more gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God (Deut 6:4, 7; Jer 10:10).
Question 9
Q. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, the same in essence, equal in power and glory (1 John 5:7; Mt 28:19).
A few days ago my friend Paul, at great risk to his reputation as a serious and substantive blogger, veered off the straight and narrow with his wellington-clad swine. Not to be outdone, I present you with…
In all seriousness, this video, according to Live Science, “is part of a larger study to estimate the population size and distribution of bears in northwestern Montana using genetic analyses of the bears’ hair samples.” Researches think the bears may be trying to scratch hard to reach spots, and/or communicating their scent to other bears. Read about it here.
(I hope these bears aren’t Baptists, or else they’re in a lot of trouble!)
My name is Thad, and I’m a bookaholic. (In unison: Hi Thad).
Like a man who can’t finish all the food he took from the buffet, my eyes are bigger than my stomach when it comes to reading. I enjoy the consumption of books, but I buy them faster than I can read them, and it’s created a little bit of a problem.
Scattered about the shelves in my study is a growing number of books that I’ve stored away with the promise that “someday” I would come back to them. Many of them are still waiting on me to make good, and yet I keep buying more. I’ll bet I’m not alone.
Today I decided to take control. It was a sobering process, but a necessary one.
I went through every one of my shelves and wrote down the title and author of every book I have not read that I might possibly want to read someday (I did not bother to catalogue those books I know I’ll never read). When it was all said and done, I discovered that I had, well, a lot of books written down.
Then I created three categories:
1) Are you crazy? That’s a classic! How could you not have read that one!?!?
2) Hot, Hot, Hot
3) Definitely Maybe
Great historic and modern day classics went under the first heading. This included books like Owen’s, The Mortification of Sin and Murray’s, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Under the second heading I listed those books that are begging to be read because they address pressing contemporary issues. For example, Pierced for Our Transgressions (Jeffery, Ovey, Sach), and Carson’s, Christ and Culture, go here. Under the third category I listed the books that I would like to read someday, but there’s no urgency.
This really helped me get a handle on what I have on my shelves and where I need to channel my time marked out for reading. My goal now is to deliberately focus on those first two categories. And hopefully I can put the brakes on another trip to the buffet before I’ve finished what’s already on my plate.
Hmmm – I wonder how much I could have read instead of writing this post?????
Somehow I recently ended up with a pile of books that came out of my wife’s grandmother’s library. Not thinking much of it, I began to sort through them the other day, when much to my surprise I found a rare old book called Sermons and Addresses by John A. Broadus. As a Southern grad, I found this to be pretty exciting.
Broadus was the first professor of homiletics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the school’s second president. I was familiar with his book, On The Preparation And Deliver Of Sermons, but this recent find was new to me. As the title suggests, it is basically a compilation of some of Broadus’ sermons and speeches.
I’m not sure when this edition was published. The only date inside the book (1886) is an imprint showing the original publisher (H.M. Wharton & Co.) However, this edition was published by George H. Doran Company, and a publisher’s note inside indicates that this edition is the first one for general widespread circulation. The earliest date I could track down online was perhaps 1910.
At any rate, more important than the date is the content, and I look forward to perusing through the book. But if anyone out there has any further information on this title, please let me know.
One last quote from Joseph Hart, this time on his change of mind when he began to rightly apprehend the sacrifice of Christ:
Now I saw that the grief of Christ was the grief of my Maker; that His wounds were the wounds of the Almighty God; and the least drop of His blood now appeared to me more valuable than ten thousands of worlds. As I had before thought His sufferings too little, they now appeared to me to be too great; and I often cried out in transports of blissful astonishment, “Lord, ‘tis too much, ‘tis too much; surely my soul was not worth so great a price.” I had also such a spirit of sympathetic love to the Lord Jesus given me, that after I had left off to sorrow for myself, for some months I grieved and mourned bitterly for Him. I looked on Him whom I had pierced, and felt such sharp compunction, mixed at the same time with so much compassion, that the pain and the pleasure I experienced, are much better felt than expressed.
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, is now the only thing I desire to know. In that incarnate mystery are contained all the rich treasures of divine wisdom. This is the mark towards which I am still pressing forward. This is the cup of salvation, of which I wish to drink deeper and deeper. This is the knowledge in which I long to grow; and desire at the same time a daily increase in all true grace and godliness. All duties, means, ordinances, etc. are to me then only rich, when they are enriched with the blood of the Lamb, in comparison of which all things else are but chaff and husks.
Joseph Hart on the two greatest distractions from the gospel:
Pharisaic zeal, and Antinomian security, are the two engines of Satan, with which he grinds the Church in all ages, as betwixt the upper and the nether millstone. The space between them is much narrower and harder to find than most men imagine. It is a path which the vulture’s eye hath not seen; and none can show it us but the Holy Ghost.
Hart’s hymn, Lamb of God We Fall Before Thee, cuts a straight path between these two errors:
Lamb of God, we fall before thee,
Humbly trusting in thy cross;
That alone be all our glory;
All things else are dung and dross;
Thee we own a perfect Saviour,
Only Source of all that’s good:
Every grace and every favour
Comes to us through Jesus’ blood.
Jesus gives us true repentance,
By his Spirit sent from heaven;
Jesus whispers this sweet sentence,
“Son, thy sins are all forgiven.”
Faith he gives us to believe it;
Grateful hearts his love to prize;
Want we wisdom ? He must give it;
Hearing ears, and seeing eyes.
Jesus gives us pure affections,
Wills to do what he requires;
Makes us follow his directions,
And what he commands inspires.
All our prayers and all our praises,
Rightly offered in his name,
He that dictates them is Jesus;
He that answers is the same.
When we live on Jesus’ merit,
Then we worship God aright,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Then we savingly unite.
Hear the whole conclusion of it;
Great or good, whate’er we call,
God, or King, or Priest, or Prophet,
Jesus Christ is All in All.
“God is not simply a great sight, the object of speculative curiosity. The revelation of His glory and the whole theological process which legitimately follows from it is holy ground. We cannot stand as superiors over God or His Word. We may not coldly and detachedly analyse and collate the great self-revealing deeds and utterances of Jehovah. We may not theologise without emotion and commitment. The doctrine must thrill and exhilarate. It must humble and cast down….Theology has lost its way, and indeed its very soul, if it cannot say with John, ‘I fell at his feet as dead.’” – Donald Macleod
Gospel
“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” – Richard Sibbes
“Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, is now the only thing I desire to know. In that incarnate mystery are contained all the rich treasures of divine wisdom. This is the mark towards which I am still pressing forward. This is the cup of salvation, of which I wish to drink deeper and deeper. This is the knowledge in which I long to grow; and desire at the same time a daily increase in all true grace and godliness. All duties, means, ordinances, etc. are to me then only rich, when they are enriched with the blood of the Lamb, in comparison of which all things else are but chaff and husks.” – Joseph Hart
"Let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching - where Christ is everything, and the creature is nothing; where it is salvation all of grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus." – Charles Spurgeon
!), and of course it’s fun to hear those southerners lengthen and re-accent their syllables: We shot off fah-uhr wurks on the fourth of JU-ly.
