For The Truth

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Ten Helps Against Satan's Devices

"Though Satan's tools may change over the centuries, his devices remain constant."
  1. walk by the rule of God's Word
  2. don't grieve the Spirit
  3. strive for heavenly wisdom
  4. resist Satan's first motions
  5. labor to be filled with the Spirit
  6. remain humble
  7. pursue watchfulness
  8. retain communion with God
  9. fight Satan by drawing strength from the Lord Jesus
  10. be much in prayer

(Taken from the summary of Thomas Brooks' work Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices found in Meet the Puritans by Joel Beeke and Randall Pedersen, pp. 99-100, ISBN: 978160178003.)

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Ten Advantages to Assurance

"There is no higher privilege than to be a child of God and to know it...

...for assurance brings joy to worship and prayer, and strength and boldness to our witness."

The advantages to assurance:
  1. it offers heaven on earth
  2. sweetens life's changes
  3. keeps the heart from desiring the world
  4. assists communion with God
  5. preserves from backsliding
  6. produces holy boldness
  7. prepares a man for death
  8. makes mercies taste like mercies
  9. gives vigor in Christian service
  10. leads to soul's enjoyment of Christ

(Taken from the summary of Thomas Brooks' work Heaven on Earth: A Treatise on Assurance found in Meet the Puritans by Joel Beeke and Randall Pedersen, pp.98-99, ISBN: 978160178003.)

Saturday, March 03, 2012

The Liberal Jesus

J. Gresham Machen contrasts the orthodox Christian Jesus with the un-christian or sub-christian jesus of Liberalism in his classic work against that false religion:

"But by modern liberalism He [Jesus] is regarded in a totally different way. Christians stand in a religious relation to Jesus; liberals do not stand in a religious relation to Jesus-what difference could be more profound than that? The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God, he enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But he does not stand in a religious relation to Jesus. Jesus for him is an example for faith, not the object of faith. The modern liberal tries to have faith in God like the faith which he supposes Jesus had in God, but he does not have faith in Jesus."

Taken from Christianity and Liberalism, p.85 (ISBN: 0802811213).

The Liberal jesus cannot save, he can only serve as an anemic example of emasculation and failure. In him there is no hope and only discouragement. Praise be to God that my Savior lives (Job 19:25; 2 Cor. 13:3-4) and is at the right hand of the Almighty Father (Mk. 16:19; Ac, 2:32-36). In Him we have hope (Heb. 7:17-28).

Non nobis Domine