Doctrine of Assurance Week 4



In His Perfect Timing

We find a multitude of providences so timed to a minute, that had they occurred just a little sooner or later, they had mattered little in comparison with what now they do. Certainly, it cannot be chance, but counsel, that so exactly works in time. Contingencies keep to no rules. . . . The angel calls to Abraham, and, shows him another sacrifice just when his hand was giving the fatal stroke to Isaac (Genesis 22:10–11). A well of water is shown to Hagar just when she had left the child, as not able to see its death (Genesis 21:16, 19). Rabshakeh meets with a blasting providence, hears a rumor that frustrated his design, just when ready to make an assault upon Jerusalem. (Isaiah 37:8) - John Flavel

Spiritual Warfare (5): God is All Mercy





His Staff Mark 1:14-15





His Ministry Mark 1:14-15





Spiritual Warfare (4): Stress Sin/Hide Virtue - Ecclesiastes 7:20



Bullmore on the Lord's Supper

As we head off to worship today...


What Are The Purposes Of The Lord's Supper? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Confession of Sin

Our Father, we confess that like sheep, we have all gone astray.  Not one of us by nature is righteous.  Not one of us with our whole heart has sought after you.  We have all turned aside time and again, and together we are tainted by sin.  Our mouths have been filled with curses and bitterness.  Our minds have been gorged with resentment, so that inwardly if not outwardly our feet have been swift to shed blood.  More than once we have lived as if there was no fear of God in our hearts.  If you should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  None of us.  Not even one!  Please forgive us for Jesus’ sake.  Amen

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Why Does God Allow Suffering To Come To The Lives Of Some Of His Children And Not Others? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

The Love of Ease

Christianity will cost a man his love of ease. He must take pains and trouble if he means to run a successful race toward heaven. He must daily watch and stand on his guard, like a soldier on enemy’s ground. He must take heed to his behavior every hour of the day, in every company and in every place, in public as well as in private, among strangers as well as at home. He must be careful over his time, his tongue, his temper, his thoughts, his imagination, his motives, his conduct in every relation of life. He must be diligent about his prayers, his Bible reading, and his use of Sundays, with all their means of grace. In attending to these things, he may come far short of perfection; but there is none of them that he can safely neglect. “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat” (Prov. 13:4). - J.C. Ryle

Some Thoughts on Despair

Is It A Sin To Despair? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Thoughts on the Lord's Supper from Flavel

The Lord’s supper is memorative, and so it has the nature and use of a pledge or token of love, left by a dying to a dear surviving friend. It is like a ring plucked off from Christ’s finger, or a bracelet from His arm, or rather His picture from His breast, delivered to us with such words as these: “As oft as you look on this, remember Me; let this help to keep Me alive in your remembrance when I am gone, and out of sight.” - John Flavel

What's your Man-Cave Like?

Good post over at the Art of Manliness blog on decorating your man-cave. Good stuff. Us guys need to take this kind of thing seriously, ya know?

Start your Saturday with Spurgeon

“The sweet psalmist of Israel.” - 2 Samuel 23:1

Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord. David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd’s crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried in his friends, his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.” His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honour and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and billows rolled over him. It is probably from this cause that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools-the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms, and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel thee this day.

Spiritual Warfare: Sin Lessened



Doctrine of Assurance Week 3



His Temptation Mark 1:12-13



Spritual Warfare: Sin Painted - Isaiah 5



Doctrine of Assurance Week 2



His Anointing Mark 1:9-11



Scottish Psalter 122

Psalm 122 from the Scottish Psalter

1 I joyed when to the house of God,

Go up, they said to me.

2 Jerusalem, within thy gates

our feet shall standing be.

3 Jerus'lem, as a city, is

compactly built together:

4 Unto that place the tribes go up,

the tribes of God go thither:

To Isr'el's testimony, there

to God's name thanks to pay.

5 For thrones of judgment, ev'n the thrones

of David's house, there stay.

6 Pray that Jerusalem may have

peace and felicity:

Let them that love thee and thy peace

have still prosperity.

7 Therefore I wish that peace may still

within thy walls remain,

And ever may thy palaces

prosperity retain.

8 Now, for my friends' and brethren's sakes,

Peace be in thee, I'll say.

9 And for the house of God our Lord,

I'll seek thy good alway.



Just Remember...

In light of this:

S&P downgrades US credit rating from AAA

Remember this:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer's;

he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Doctrine of Assurance Week 1



Nancy Guthrie on Suffering, Hope, and the Centrality of Christ from Desiring God

The Herald - Mark 1

Mark1:1-8

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

who will prepare your way,3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” 4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Anxious Today?

John Piper gives us eight good reasons based on Matthew 6:25-34 not to be anxious. Here is the first four:

1.Life is more than food and the body more than clothing (Matthew 6:25).
2.God feeds the birds and you are more valuable than they are (Matthew 6:26).
3.It's pointless. It adds not one hour to your life (Matthew 6:27).
4.If God clothes ephemeral grass, he will clothe eternal you (Matthew 6:28-30).

Read the other four along with the entire post here.

Matthew 6:25-34

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 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? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? [1] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.