One of the great prayers from the Valley of Vision, a collection of old puritan prayers, says this, "No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If thou, oh Lord, should give me choice to live in pleasure and keep my sin, or to have them burnt away with trials, give … Continue reading Sanctified Affliction Seldom Seems Sanctified
For Your salvation I wait, O LORD. Gen. 49:18 In our text we see Jacob, who is coming to the end of his life, prophesying over his sons; the twelve tribes of Israel. As we read the text, we can see him propped up in bed weak from age, blessing his sons with perfect accuracy … Continue reading Longing for Home
“[Approximately] 75-80 percent of Mormon converts come from specifically Protestant background. A well-known saying within LDS circles, based on the average size of a Baptist church in America, is “We baptize a Baptist church every week.” Whatever the actual figures are, the fact is that far more people convert to Mormonism from evangelical churches than … Continue reading The Mormon Challenge to Seeker Churches
But they will become his slaves so that they may learn the difference between my service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. 2 Chronicles 12:8 In this verse, we find the nation of Judah in a humbling position. King Rehoboam had only been king of Judah for five years, but in that … Continue reading When God’s Love Hurts
“We do not regard it to be soul-winning to steal members out of churches already established, and train them to utter our peculiar Shibboleth: we aim rather at bringing souls to Christ than at making converts to our synagogue." "In the next place, we do not consider soul-winning to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing more … Continue reading On Soul Winning – Charles Spurgeon
In a recent post, I introduced Moral Absolutism in relation to God's moral law and said that I would be posting three posts on how moral absolutists handle ethical dilemmas, here is the first post in the series. Non-Conflicting Absolutism (NCA) One way to deal with moral dilemmas is to argue that the so-called dilemmas only … Continue reading Understanding Moral Dilemmas 1: Non-Conflicting Absolutism
"Blessed are they that mourn." This beatitude is clearly one of the great paradoxes of scripture. "Blessed" and "mourning" almost seem to be contradictory. When we think of mourning, we rarely think about blessing, Typically our minds think of death because mourning is something we do when someone dies, but here again, Jesus is showing … Continue reading What Does it Mean to Mourn? [Beatitudes]
What do you do when it seems you have to choose between two sins? For instance, the midwives in the Old Testament, do they lie and say that the Jewish women have their babies too quickly to kill them, or do they tell them the truth and fail to protect the babies (see Exodus chapter … Continue reading God’s Moral Law and Absolutism: Introduction
Pastor Jeff Saltzmann gives us five soul-searching questions to drive home the fact that we are secure in Christ.
Dear Christian, your fears are lying to you. Nothing they warn you about can ultimately hurt you. Fear shows its face daily and holds you back from doing things that may not be safe according to the world's wisdom, but are life-giving in every respect. It tells you that you must save your life, or … Continue reading Your Fears are Lying to You
The Fight of Faith 