Charles Spurgeon was a great preacher. In his sermon What are the Clouds? He asks timeless questions. He asks the questions we ask today, when there are disasters, wars, tragedies. Why did my baby die? What did that war accomplish? Why was there a terrible hurricane?
Here Spurgeon speaks of mysterious Providence as he did so often. Providence is the outworking of the plan God has in His mind that He causes to happen and all things that He prevents from happening. It’s the working out of His will in the world. We might be but a microbe in the grand plan and cannot see all that He is doing nor know why. But we still ask, Why? Where is the good in this?
If you collapsed and were unresponsive, but woke only long enough to get two words out of your mouth to your ambulance driver, what would they be?
In December 2019, Pastor Tom Ascol was ministering to his congregation when he suddenly collapsed. He lay unresponsive on the floor. Some people were crying, most were praying. One was singing.
I was asked for a review or a critique of a July 23, 2021 interview between Allen Parr of The Beat, and Priscilla Shirer, a well-known speaker and teacher and author on the Christian ministry circuit. This is that review. I listened to the first 30 minutes of the 58-minute interview.
Before I was saved, I went to Italy. One of those times I visited the Colosseum. I wrote about that visit here. For a short while immediately after I was saved, in reading the passages in Revelation and Peter and Isaiah where the earth will be completely deconstructed and remade, I was sad that all the pretty things would be swept away too. All the “great art”, all the “monuments” like the Colosseum or Pyramids. All the castles and mansions and bridges and things tourists go to see. Awww, I thought.
EPrata photo. Windsor Castle
But of course all those were made by sinful man’s hands and many of them, particularly in art, are odes to false gods. (Botticelli’s Primavera for example). As I matured I began to see man’s works for what they were, pretty, sure, awe-inspiring, yes, but ultimately symbols of debauchery against a holy God amid our history across human epochs. The Colosseum will fall. Now or later, it is guaranteed to be swept away in the calamity of judgment imminently bearing down on us. Let’s start seeing these cracked and tottering monuments of rebellion for what they are- and get used to thinking about the glories ahead made by Jesus’s hands. (John 14:3).
What Jesus has built for us is a body that shall never perish. A universal body of believers who eternally will worship Him in praise and sing, myself included. He has prepared a place for us to be with Him always. He will share with us a new heavens and a new earth whose riches and beauty stunned Isaiah into woeful silence.
Praise God for his coming promises to be fulfilled.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. (Romans 1:18-19).
What did they suppress, exactly? And where? Or how?
They, meaning unbelievers, deny in their minds that there is a God. They suppress that He made everything in creation. They hate thinking of the fact that He made them, which would mean they are accountable to Him at judgment for their words, their deeds, their lives. They squash their conscience when they do evil.
In Genesis 1:26, God made man in His image. We don’t look like God nor do we possess His incommunicable attributes, but ‘in His image’ means as Phil Johnson preached:
“Humanity bears the stamp of God’s likeness. No other creature, not even the highest archangel, was made in God’s image. We can see the image of God imprinted on the human soul in humanity’s unique moral and spiritual attributes, those things that set us apart from the animals.”
“For example, the human intellect is uniquely capable of self-reflection. We’re creative. We are moved by beauty. We speak a variety of complex languages. Our moral instinct (that innate sense of right and wrong) is unparalleled in the animal kingdom. We have a conscience that declares our guilt when we do wrong. And no other creature manifests anything like the human craving for communion with God. Animals don’t practice religion of any kind.” end Phil Johnson excerpt from sermon “What Creation Reveals”
When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” (Matthew 8:1-4).
Notice that in the Bible it’s almost always (with two exceptions) a cleansing of a leper, not a healing of a leper. This essay examines why that distinction exists, and looks at the life of a person in New Testament times who has the disease of leprosy.
On July 8, 2012, Pastor Jim Murphy of First Baptist Church of Johnson City, NY delivered a sermon titled “The Subtlety of Satan“. I can’t believe it’s been almost ten years! I remember the impact of that sermon like it was yesterday. The church synopsized Pr. Murphy’s sermon this way:
"Pastor Jim looked back over the last fifty years of church ministry to suggest the slow, incremental, and subtle changes that have created a theological crisis resulting in a move away from the foundational authority of the Word of God and into an experiential, emotional, and radically individualized form of Christianity. Not only will this review trace the consequences of the "little" erroneous theological conclusions that have defined the current struggle within evangelicalism, it will also define the way back to biblical Christianity."
I wrote about that sermon here. One of the things that caught my attention was the fact that the Pastor repented for not paying attention to some of the other gateway points of encroachment satan uses to enter into the church in order to corrupt it. We all know that elders are charged with guarding the pulpit from satan’s wiles against polluting the word of God. But satan enters in through other points in the church too. He enters in via the church library. Via the women’s ministry. Via the music.
Most pastors guard the pulpit well, this gate is usually tended to and secure EPrata photo
Meanwhile, other fences in the church are left unguarded or are neglected. Satan enters in the gaps. EPrata photo
Pastor Joel Webbon of Right Response Ministries interviewed Justin Peters about that very point of entry. Peters called music the “Gateway Drug” to heresy.
Music contains doctrine. It can present good doctrine or poor doctrine or heresy. As the congregation sings good or bad or heretical words, it changes the mind and heart. It’s meant to. Good music points to God and changes one’s affections toward Him and extols His attributes. Bad and heretical music points to ourselves and nudges us away from heavenly affections.
Music is one infiltration point. The music you sing in your church matters. The clip below is 6 minutes. Under the video are some resources about the importance of singing good music in church, and why.
Hymns are wonderful didactic tools, filled with Scripture and sound doctrine, a medium for teaching and admonishing one another, as we are commanded to do in Colossians 3:16… ~John MacArthur
Grace Community Church, Generations of Grace-Hymnody: Here, the ministry of John MacArthur’s church through opera singer Phillip Webb presents a short backstory to a hymn, and then he sings the hymn with instrumental backup. You might need to plug in your email to access the 93 hymns.
Truth for Life ministry by Alistair Begg discusses Music and Worship, with Keith Getty, saying,
Music has been a fundamental element of Christian worship from the earliest days of the church. As Keith Getty points out, though, its power is not guaranteed. Singing lyrics with shallow theology or leaving the actual singing to the “professionals” will not help form the body of Christ. Music’s transformative power in worship is only present when the full Gospel is proclaimed and when the congregation sings God’s truth as one body.
Tend your fences...because satan is subtle.
For a lot of people in the US, summer is only just getting started. For me, I go back to school on August 2, so my summer break is winding down, fast! It always flies by quickly, but this year more than ever. I moved from one town to another on June 1, and it took a good 3 weeks to get settled. That, plus some other issues happening, made this year’s summer break seem like a blink.
The SBC Annual Meeting didn’t go well, and that took energy from me, and then the plagiarism scandal pushed me over the edge. I hate sermon plagiarism because it is deception, lying, laziness, and offends God severely. Pastors are given a high position in God’s economy. They are to share the word of God with the people divide it rightly. When pastors deliberately fail at this repeatedly, in my mind it’s a sin of the highest order. So that wearied me too.
Let’s take a break. Here are some nice, wholesome, pleasant links for you that have nothing to do with any scandal.
BOOKS: Carrie Graham Koens and her husband adopted 5 children from Latin America a few years ago. The children didn’t know English, or much of anything outside their home country. The oldest was sullen and resentful. Carrie relates a beautiful story of striving to find common ground with her newly adopted kids, through reading aloud. Here she reviews The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in an Age of Distraction, and offers a beautifully written personal experience story, here.
FOOD: Here at Good, Cheap Eats, Jessica reviews her experience with the subscription of Imperfect Produce (changed to Imperfect Foods). In my area there’s Misfit Market, and there are many other subscription boxes you can try. While it was available in my area, I belonged to a produce co-op where you went to a location and picked up your ordered box. You ordered a box, but accepted whatever came in it. It was a frugal alternative to full price produce at the supermarket, and I was introduced to produce I had not heard of before. I now have too many food allergies and a much more limited range of produce (and foods in general) I can eat, so subscription boxes wont’ work for me any more, but I thought Jessica’s review of this particular subscription was fair and honest. Check out her other essays for great information on a range of food-related and kitchen topics.
MANSION: Want to buy an 11-acre mansion set on the cliffs of Dover, (In England) complete with its own lighthouse? Only 4.25 million UK pounds. Can’t quite pull that out of your pocket? Then take a virtual tour and enjoy the beauty, and dream a little.
MOVIES: Need a pleasing, feel-good family movie to rest your eyes and not blight your soul? I enjoyed Blue Miracle with Dennis Quaid. Here, The World reviews it positively, if you want to find more about it. On Netflix.
ART: The bustling NY City Tribeca art scene is as far away from here, a rural county with cows and pastures and farmers trundling up the road on tractors, but that’s why I’m fascinated with it. People in America live vastly different lives from each other in vastly diverse settings. Here is an art essay on the Tribeca gallery scene and the realtor who helped bustle it.
CATS: I’ve been missing having a cat lately. Not enough to get another one, and my lease forbids animals anyway, so I’ve satisfied my need to see kitties with watching Youtube videos. Of those, thousands abound! I watched a short series from wife and husband Rachel & Jun, who had pity on a starving, injured cat, caught it, and brought home to foster in their small apartment in Japan.
WRITING: We’ve had art, books, and now writing. Next will be music, thus completing my surf today of the arts I enjoy. I agreed with Doug Eaton who says that writing can be and often is a spiritual discipline. It is for me. I found this on Challies’ roundup links so a hat tip to him. Writing as a Spiritual Discipline
MUSIC: At Grace Community Church, there’s a media section of Hymnology. Opera singer Phillip Webb introduces a hymn by giving the backstory of the author, then he sings it. It’s a relaxing, educational, sweet 4 minutes. You can watch for free but need to sign up with email to get in. GCC doesn’t spam you. Hymnology from Hymns of Grace
New York City. The Empire State Building as seen from the East River. Note its lightning rod. EPrata photo
Our teaching pastor is going through Acts. We got to a part where the scriptures introduced Barnabas. My teaching pastor spent some time relating to us the scriptures that demonstrated Barnabas’ character. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the New Testament is familiar with Barnabas.
Barnabas was nicknamed “Son of Encouragement.” It’s a great nickname. Son of Encouragement is way better than the nickname given to James and John- “Sons of Thunder” AKA Boanerges. Barnabas and Paul were together for many years, a pair that encouraged each other, supported each other, and went about on mission teaching and preaching having each other’s backs. Barnabas even affirmed Saul before he was widely known as a convert and still seen as a persecutor. (Acts 15:2, Acts 9:27). Look for how many times in the New Testament we read, “Paul and Barnabas.” As Kevin DeYoung said in his sermon Christians in Conflict, these two were like Batman and Robin.
So the other day I watched a clip of a storm hovering over a driving range. The range had been cleared, but one teenager wanted to get in one last swing. He drove his golf ball off the driving tee, and hurtling 88 miles per hour, in mid-air a lighting bolt came out of nowhere and incinerated it. The youth was amazed and scurried further into the safety of the covered roof. The video made the news.
The National Weather Service has a few things to say about lightning and thunder. “Lightning is an underrated killer, responsible for an average of 26 deaths per year across the country (10 year average).” The NWS motto is, “When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!” because “if you can hear thunder, you are close enough to be struck by lightning, … No place outside is safe during a thunderstorm.”
Paul was a lightning rod. We know that the Lord told Ananias in Acts 9:16 that Paul must suffer for His name. In 2 Corinthians 11:23b-27 Paul recounted some of these sufferings-
I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent adrift at sea. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
Barnabas suffered also. Barnabas was with Paul at Lystra when the Jews stoned Paul. Acts 14:19-20
But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.
Even if the people with Paul didn’t directly experience the stoning, they experienced trauma. Even if one stone had not landed on Barnabas, Barnabas had the agony of witnessing his friend being injured, watched him dragged bloody and unconscious out of the city, and thought his friend was dead! It must have been emotionally wrenching for Barnabas.
What if you’re a bit shy, and friends with someone who stands firmly on biblical doctrine? What if you’re friends with a podcaster who receives push-back for their stances? What if you are friends with someone who preaches or teaches or proclaims in the streets the ordinances of God? Will you stand with him or her? Or will you back away?
Counting the cost not only has application for the ones proclaiming, but for the friends within that person’s sphere, too. Will you stand with your friend and ignore your crumbling reputation because of his or her strong stances? Will you support by your friend, defending him even when others back away? Will you keep holding the lightning rod?
In 1752, when Ben Franklin was mulling over the issue of lightning and electricity, even before he did his kite experiment, Franklin proposed a lighting rod would be a safe way to attract the lightning and deliver it safely to the ground before it could harm anything or anyone. He called it the lightning attractor. These days, anyone who stands on biblical doctrine is a lightning attractor. We never know when or from what direction the strike will come from, but it will come.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 2 Timothy 3:12
The days are evil and getting more evil by the day. Here in the United States, there is an overt and aggressive push against anything Christian. It’s worse elsewhere in the world. Just saying a Bible verse out loud in public is often enough to draw the lightning! Counting the cost will come to mean counting whether or not to be a Robin to your Batman.
Well, when he arrived at the synagogue, he was invited to preach; and Barnabas and he sitting in the congregation were noticed by the leaders. Paul was invited to preach, and he did. His sermon blew the city wide open. It was the most devastating, shattering thing that perhaps had ever happened in the city of Antioch. The city had, like most cities, endeavored under its leadership to maintain some kind of a placid equilibrium and some kind of a balance, and that was absolutely shattered by the preaching of Paul. But before we would be too surprised, we would call to mind the fact that the gospel, whenever it is purely proclaimed in the midst of sin and wherever there are unsaved people, is bound to have results that are going to be shattering. (Source: The Troubling Gospel)
Bearing the above in mind, here’s an imaginary conversation between Paul and Barnabas.
Barn, let’s sail to Cyprus. Hey, haven’t you been shipwrecked three times? Yup. OK, let’s go! And Barnabas gets on the ship.
Would you get on a ship with Paul? Will you hold the lightning rod? It’s one thing to hang onto it when skies are clear. Now that it’s stormy, will you not only stand next to it, but hold it? These are decisions you will no doubt need to make as time goes on. We bless Barnabas for being a faithful friend to Paul even though Paul’s sufferings often included his friend either witnessing dire events, or participating in them. Silas was jailed WITH Paul-
The crowd joined in an attack against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, (Acts 16:22-23a).
If you’re a Robin because you like to be in the background, you might sorrowfully find yourself stepping away from your friend. If you’re a Robin because you’re a Son or Daughter of Encouragement and enjoy being a support to someone else for the name of Christ, then you might find yourself on a wild ride like that golf ball hurled into the skies only to be struck by a bolt out of the blue. Will you get on the ship with Paul or wave goodbye from the shore?
Time will tell. But think on these things, and prepare ahead for the inevitable time of deciding.
