By Elizabeth Prata
I am reading several theologically rich books, my pastor is preaching wonderful sermons, I listen to terrific hymns, and the Bible is always deep with truths…and all this creates heavenly thoughts in my brain. Which is as it should be. This is how the Spirit transforms the mind.
Today I am sharing some of the rabbit trails my mind has been traveling this week as I ponder, mull, and meditate on the things of Christ.
“Dying Adam begat mortals.” From Thomas Boston, (1577-1635) Human Nature in its Fourfold State.
It’s an interesting way to phrase the concept of Adam becoming a sinner whose destiny is death, rather than the immortal person he was before he rebelled.
Think on this- Genesis 5:3 says, “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.“
‘His own likeness’ the verse is careful to remind us. Adam’s likeness is mortal, because after his fall, sin became our human nature, and sinners receive the due penalty of death. MacArthur says of Adam, “He was created in the image of God. Unfortunately, Seth was made in the image of man. While still bearing the imago Dei residually, still having something of the image of God in him, he is most dominated and marked by the image of man, which is the image of fallenness and sin. So he becomes, does Adam, the father of a son who bears his image. How sad.”
“Though the Flood could not carry off the corruption of human nature, yet it pointed at the way at how it is to be done; to wit, that men must be born of water and of the Spirit, raised from spiritual death in sin, by the grace of Jesus Christ, who came by water and blood, out of which a new world of saints arise in regeneration” ~Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State
Yes, the Flood did not solve man’s gravest problem, our sin nature inherited from Adam. A sinner cannot beget a saint. A sinner can only beget a sinner. If God took the same path with men, there would be deluge after deluge, because the corruption of man’s nature remains still. But God promised there would not be another flood, and sent the rainbow to seal this promise as a reminder to us when we see it. Instead, He sent something better, someONE better, Jesus, to live the holy life we need to live, to die in our stead, and to be raised again having conquered death by his perfect life.
Jen Hatmmaker made the rounds on social media this week. It was reported that Hatmaker has a new course which you can take for only $69 to learn how to be separate from religion and church but still love Jesus. It’s a course on how to ‘deconstruct’ which is a trendy word for the biblical term of apostatising.
I wrote about that here.
As a response to the outcry and outrage that Hatmaker would make filthy lucre off impugning Jesus’ name, toxic empaths insist on being nice and using gentle words with Hatmaker as we discuss this terrible state of affairs. “Be nice” they say. No. Whether wolves are baring their fangs or smiling through them, it behooves us to use strong language to warn about their deadly effects. Be gentle with her? No!
Megan Basham said on Twitter, @megbasham
For those telling me that we should approach Jen Hatmaker with gentleness – – be aware, she is a false teacher who has long peddled destructive doctrines, and now is making money selling a course to lead people out of the church. The ultimate wolf.
Fiercely protect the faith. We don’t have to sling mud, but we should be forthright, honest, and clear about those false teachers who seek to destroy us.
Michelle Lesley has some good thoughts about this topic.
I was browsing my bookshelves in my Library and came across a book I forgot I had. A commentary on Jonah & Nahum by John MacArthur. I love the book of Jonah. I live Nahum even more. I’d read my book Severe Compassion: The Gospel According to Nahum (The Gospel According to the Old Testament) by Gregory Cook. It is good and I recommend that one. So I began reading Jonah & Nahum by MacArthur. MacArthur has a way of writing that is concise, but deep. Easy to understand, but thought-provoking. Unsentimental, but so exalting it raises tears in my eyes.
In Chapter 2 of this commentary, we read: “From the outset of the story, God manifested His heart for the lost. Instead of executing immediate judgment on the Ninevites for their wickedness, the Lord graciously sent them a warning of their pending destruction if they did not repent (Jonah 1:2; 3:5-9). Yet, God showed compassion not only to Nineveh but also to His wayward prophet Jonah, sending a storm to discipline him (1:4) and a fish to deliver him from the sea (1:17; 2:10). Additionally, Yahweh spared the pagan sailors whom Jonah had hired to take him to Tarshish. Though they deserved death, being steeped in idolatry and self-dependence (1:5), God preserved their lives and drew them to Himself (1:16).“
Jonah did not want to preach to the Gentiles, but he preached to them anyway- the sailors! Jonah is a good example of having head knowledge of God but it hadn’t reached his heart. He knew God was compassionate and likely to save the hated Ninevites. He knew God was Creator and King over the storms and waves. Jonah knew all this, but his heart for the lost was absent.
God was sovereign over the storm, the sailors, Jonah, the great fish, the Ninevites, the plant, the wind, and the worm. God’s sovereignty is so on display in this book, which you see as you read the commentary, it is breathtaking.
Charles Spurgeon was right in so many ways. In his Lectures to My Students, he spoke about the kind of men who apply to his seminary for training in ministry, but are rejected, and why.
Men who since conversion have betrayed great feebleness of mind and are readily led to embrace strange doctrines, or to fall into evil company and gross sin—I never can find it in my heart to encourage to enter the ministry, let their professions be what they may. Let them, if truly penitent, keep in the rear ranks. Unstable as water, they will not excel.
So, too, those who cannot endure hardness, but are of the kid-gloved order, I refer elsewhere. We want soldiers, not fops. We want earnest laborers, not genteel loiterers. Men who have done nothing up to their time of application to the college, are told to earn their spurs before they are publicly dubbed as knights. Fervent lovers of souls do not wait until they are trained—they serve their Lord at once.
I noticed that even back 150 years ago there were snowflakes, what Spurgeon called ‘those of the kid glove type.’ He didn’t hold back in this lecture, but at the outset he warned, “I am as much at home with my young brethren as in the bosom of my family, and therefore speak without restraint.” Yes, today in this era we have milquetoast men who are passive Adams, but for service in a pastorate we need hardy soldiers.
To this end we must give clear statements of gospel doctrine, of vital experience, and of Christian duty, and never shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God. In too many cases sublime truths are held in abeyance under the pretense that they are not practical; whereas the very fact that they are revealed proves that the Lord thinks them to be of value, and woe unto us if we pretend to be wiser than He.
Well said, Mr Spurgeon.
the-end-time.org 