Making a list, but not spell-checking it

by Jolly Fat Man

You see, children: I really do keep a list, and here I am checking it the second time before the big Day. It used to be a fun day, but there are so blamed many of you these days that if I don't check it at least twice and get the naughty ones off the list, I'll never make it around the 4 corners of the globe in one night.

Ah, yes. My list. I'm sure you didn't know this, but the Jolly Fat Man makes a lot of lists during the year and because I can't use a PDA -- I always drop those tiny little buggers, they break, and of course the last time I sync'd was when Mama reminded me with than mean look in her eye -- I lose a lot of them. I'm pretty grateful, however, that I have elves all over the world these days who are compiling lists.

The reason I have interrupted TeamPyro -- and yes, I really read it; it's not a cardboard cutout of be prop'd up behind a spare GTY computer, or some biker who thinks he can make some quick gas money at Christmas, in spite of what the frowny-faced literalists would have you believe about me -- is to let you readers know that TeamPyro has been especially good this year (except for one of them, but I'll get to that), and they have a long list. In fact, when Dan brought me his list, he wanted to sit on my lap -- but (ho ho ho) he's pretty big guy. There's barely enough of my lap these days for me to sit at all -- heavens knows that he and I wouldn;t both fit!

So here's the TeamPyro Christmas list, with notes:

For Pecadillo:

• A big fat steak, or at least a gift card good for one. Because he now eats too many donuts.
• A nice girl. He's really a nice boy in spite of his blog (Ho ho ho), and he needs a nice girl. His brother has a nice girl, and somehow cent has a nice girl. Pec would benefit from a nice girl.
• A real man's gun. Because the service revolver is for rookies, and nobody gets accused of having a "boyish face" when he points gray 64 HRC tenifer in someone's face.

For Dan:

• A real man's gun. Dan would feel left out if Pec had all the fire power.
• BibleWorks 7 Fully Loaded. The sidearm is nice, but this is the weapon of choice for a guy like Dan.
• A nice hat. He has a nice head, and the nice hat would fit nicely.

For Phil:

• CS3. Phil is using a second-rate bundle to load the blog with images. Imagine what he could do with the real thing.
• A teamPyro leather jacket. The embroidery is a nightmare, but I have my best elves on it and we'll see if they can have it ready by Christmas this year.

For that scoundrel centuri0n or Frank or whatever his name is:

• Nothin'. He already has so much more than he deserves, and if there is any member of TeamPyro which is naughty, he's the one. Listen: I know naughty from nice, and he's not nice. Nothing for Frank, including that iPod car adapter he keeps mooning over, the new Apple Intel widescreen laptop, the first season of Justice League Unlimited on DVD, and fuzzy slipper boots with the rubber soles. I know what you want, Frank -- I got your letter. And in spite of your wacky defense of me last year, you still get the box of rocks, you troublemaker.

So you better watch out, and no cryin' over what's coming this Christmas. Santa does not take a vote, and he's got witnesses to support his generous verdicts.

Happy Christmas to all -- and to all a Good Night!

---

Christmas wishes for Phil and Frank

by Dan Phillips

I'm striking out on my own here, posting my Christmas wishes for Phil and Frank. Maybe they'll follow suit?

For Phil:

1. Thirty-hour days.
2. Editron 6.0, an application by which he can process MacArthur's manuscripts, and edit 100 pages of text in 3 seconds!
3. Year-long membership in Mystery Frozen Meat Chub O' the Month Club.
4. The next one would have been a goof on this movie title, but my "wish" for a 410+ comment thread would have been rapidly fulfilled by complaints from those who took it seriously and saw no humor in it. Plus the three commenters who would defend me. One of whom wouldn't be Phil. So... never mind!
   

For Frank:

1. Residence in a state that more complements and adorns his magnificence.
2. Some dirt on Challies, so Frank can be Blog King for Life.
3. A T-shirt so popular that Wal-Mart buys him out, making him rich and famous, and able to (see #1, above).
4. A candid photo of J. I. Packer wearing his "Frank Turk Is My Homeboy" T-shirt.
   

(What's really depressing is knowing our readers will have cleverer ideas. But hey! Starting a good thing is a good thing, too!)

---

Tweedle, D.D.

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive.

This short paragraph continues a theme begun here two weeks ago, with Spurgeon decrying the tendency of modern ministers to despise the simple and unlearned. This is an excerpt from a sermon with a wonderful Christmas theme, but originally preached at the peak of summer of 1859, at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall. The sermon is titled, "The Meek and Lowly One"

hrist's lowliness of heart leads him to receive the most ignorant as well as the learned to himself. I know that sometimes poor ignorant people get a notion in their heads that they cannot be saved, because they cannot read and do not know much. I have sometimes, especially in country villages, received this answer, when I have been asking anything about personal religion. "Well, you know, sir, I never had any learning."

Oh! but, ye unlearned, is this a reason why ye should stay away from him who is lowly in heart?

It was said of an old Greek philosopher, that he wrote over his door, "None but the learned may enter here." But Christ, on the contrary, writes over his door," He that is simple let him turn in hither."

There are many great men with long handles to their names who know little of the gospel, while some of the poor unlettered ones spell out the whole secret, and become perfect masters in divinity. If they had degrees who deserve them, diplomas should often be transferred, and given to those who hold the plough handle or work at the carpenter's bench; for there is often more divinity in the little finger of a ploughman than there is in the whole body of some of our modern divines.

"Don't they understand divinity?" you say.

Yes, in the letter of it; but as to the spirit and life of it, D.D. often means DOUBLY DESTITUTE.

---

Directly to the forehead

by Phil Johnson

Michael Touhey at "Strangers and Exiles" posts an insightful riff about Red-Letter Christianity, and as a follow-up, he links not only to Dan Phillips's "Ed McMahon" post, but also to a post by our very own Frank Turk, from Frank's other world-famous blog.

Stephen Clouse, in his own BlogSpotting post, also linked to both Dan and Frank.

Scott Aniol raised some interesting questions about John MacArthur, contemporary music, and "contextualization." I promised to get a reply directly from Pastor MacArthur. Scott is looking forward to the answer. (Just a note: It may be a couple of weeks before I can post on this—or even a few days longer, since things are hectic around here during the Christmas season. But I won't forget.)

The question Scott Aniol raised stemmed from a discussion this week at SharperIron.org, the blogosphere's largest bastion of fundamentalists. Bob Hayton gave an analysis of that thread, in which he said, among other things, "Phil Johnson has jumped into the discussion with only a matchbox rather than a Pyromaniacs blowtorch." I couldn't tell whether he was pleased or disappointed by my diminished firepower, but his post, and the comments that follow, give a nice shorthand summary of some of the backstories in that thread. Fundies. This is why I love them.

Annette at "Fish and Cans" (there's a blogname with some graphic possibilities) found us via Dan Phillips's other blog. Wow. See? People do read your blog, Dan.

Our good friend Carla Rolfe enjoyed the video Adrian Warnock posted. I should mention that my own lovely wife, Darlene, was the videographer there—though I think that's pretty obvious, since she kept giggling in the background.

Jon Thorsen was just thinking about Ed McMahon the other day.

Jeff Wright likewise thought Dan's post made good reading material.

A lot of people, including Mark La Roi, recommended that same post.

On the other hand, longtime Pyro-critic Rod Pickett ("PastorRod") thinks we (and Spurgeon) are out to lunch for not thinking innovation is a good thing in theology. Rod borrows several gems of wisdom from a fellow at Harvard School of Business who is something of an expert on innovation techniques for secular business. Rod thinks we need to apply this guy's ideas to the church, treating the gospel as our "product." ("All truth is God’s truth, after all," Rod solemnly reminds us.) Our response to Rod's post would echo the opinion of his first commenter: "Could we run any of these ideas through the filter of Scripture?"

Nathan White, who is about to be a father, enjoyed Dan's other post this week.

Mathew Sims posts a good summary and overview of what we have said here about the lordship issue. Mathew definitely gets it. I think it's interesting that the point Mathew finds "decisive"—the biblical teaching about church discipline—has been utterly and completely ignored by the proponents of no-lordship doctrine.

J. Michael Wender (nice seasonal blogdesign!) lists the best o' "Where I am Right Now"® links.

Paul Huxley, whom I met in London, blogged about it. He's cool.

. . . and if Dave Bish is reading this, hi again. I gave Huxley a decal for you. Be sure you get it from him. I don't want him sticking it like graffiti on one of London's porta-loos or something.

Brian Thornton has no clue how vast my collection of Pyro-T-shirts is.

Andrew Jones, Tall Skinny Kiwi, wants an eye kept on me. Andrew, if you see this: I'm definitely going to try to meet you on my next trip to the UK. I'd suggest the Starbucks at Waterloo with Adrian Warnock—but given my track record with Adrian, I'm afraid a meeting like that would bring the whole world to a screeching halt.

Sadly, that's all I have time for today. There are many other links I haven't BlogSpotted yet, and I apologize to anyone who got passed over. Keep linking here and eventually, we'll link back.

And go to church tomorrow.

---

Where I am Right Now, Part 143

Is my solipsism showing again?
by Phil Johnson

ell, Darlene and I are back from the UK, and coming home reminds me why I don't like to travel for more than 2-3 days at a time (especially in December). My desk is piled high with stuff I need to do immediately. I brought home a chest cold and a case of fatigue (or jet lag, or something) that is making it hard for me to think straight after 5:00 PM.

But I wanted to list some of the highlights of our UK visit:

• First, I'll give the obligatory disaster rundown. Last year I blogged about how bad things happen when I go places. In a different post, I chronicled and documented an amazing string of six earthquakes that followed me from continent to continent over three years' time. For years now, whenever I have returned from traveling, people who know me always ask what disaster accompanied me.
       On this trip, we encountered a freak tornado. It went over our heads like a freight train while I was at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, meeting with Dr. Peter Masters.
  
• We also had a drunk and disorderly man two rows away from us on our flight home who had to be subdued, handcuffed, and duct-taped to a back-row seat for most of the 11-hour flight home. That incident delayed our arrival, because the FBI and LAPD needed to meet the flight and remove the miscreant before anyone else could deplane. But that was more annoying than truly "disastrous."
  
• Speaking of Dr. Masters, he kindly arranged for me to examine a priceless file full of handwritten letters from Charles Spurgeon, mostly pastoral letters written to the congregation at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
       The collection included all the weekly letters he wrote from Mentone, France, in 1891-92, in those final weeks before his untimely death in a Mentone hotel, January 31, 1892. They are tender and touching letters, but reading them in sequence mostly helped make me aware of the unbelievable amount of constant pain and discomfort Spurgeon endured from gout and other complications of kidney disease, on top of the oppressive sense of stress he felt after being shunned by so many of his friends and fellow ministers in the Down Grade controversy.
       The pain is clearly reflected in the letters, and holding these documents and reading the words in Spurgeon's own handwriting made for an unforgettable evening. I managed to get excellent scans of five of the most important letters. If I had the time, I would have scanned them all. I'd post one of the scans, but I don't know if these letters have ever been published before, and I don't want to violate any copyright that might belong to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, so I need to wait and ask permission before doing anything with them.
       I told Dr. Masters I was tempted to steal a letter or two, but I managed to mortify my flesh in the nick of time.
  
• Speaking of Spurgeon, I made my first visit to the Helensburgh House on Nightingale Road in Clapham. That house, with some modifications, is the same one Spurgeon lived in for most of his ministry in London. It's called "Queen Elizabeth House" today, but the above plaque commemorating Spurgeon marks it as his famous home. It's literally within walking distance of where my friend (and frequent Pyro-commenter) Doug McMasters now lives. Doug was recently called to pastor Trinity Road Chapel in Tooting, a historic church with a close connection to Spurgeon.

Helensburgh House in Spurgeon's time

Helensburgh House today

• I rarely get sick, but it seems when I do, it's after I've been on a long flight, breathing those recycled germs in a compressed airliner. Within 24 hours of our arrival in Britain, I had symptoms of laryngitis and a head cold. The night before the "Men of Kent" conference, I went to bed very early, wanting to rest my voice so that the laryngitis wouldn't keep me from speaking at the conference that brought me to England in the first place.
       Just the day before, I had received and printed out the draft of several chapters from a book John Piper is working on in response to N. T. Wright on the doctrine of justification by faith. So I started reading it. I couldn't put it down and wound up staying up late anyway. The book is unfinished and Piper is currently working on other things.
       Since it's not ready for publication yet, I can't quote from the book and won't say much about it except to say that Piper's defense of sola fide and his exposition of the ramifications of divine grace literally moved me to tears. It's an excellent, irenic, thoughtful, informed, thoroughly biblical, and fair response to Wright. I've done a couple of one-hour seminars examining Wright's statements on justification. In the process I've read carefully what Wright has written on the subject, and I have thought for many hours—no, many months—about the subject. But Piper's book made points and highlighted things that have never occurred to me. Piper's analysis of Wright is a thousand times better than my measly efforts. I learned a lot from Piper about this whole controversy, and I can't wait to see his book completed and in print. Keep an eye out for it.
       When the final manuscript is ready, I hope to get a copy I can review and preview here.
  
• I met the esteemed Dr. Adrian Warnock again. Same place as last time: Starbucks in the lower level of Waterloo Station.
       He has posted his notes and a photo from our meeting at his blog. He has also posted this video, which Darlene took with Adrian's really cool camera. As always, I enjoyed the time with him and wish it could have been longer. But he is gainfully employed in the real world and like me is not really a full-time blogger. So we only had about an hour together.
       We discussed the difficulty of blogging with a real job on the side, controversy in the blogosphere, our respective styles and different approaches to certain issues and people, and the problem of troublesome commenters who seem to aim at being irksome. If you're wondering whether we talked about you or not, we probably did. We did not argue about the charismatic issue. (There wasn't nearly enough time for that, or we would have, I'm sure.)
       But Adrian revealed to the world during my visit that he is about to be a father once more. Congratulations to him and Mrs. Warnock.

There's prolly more I could say about the past two weeks, but this is enough for now. I have some thoughts about evangelicalism in the UK that I want to crystallize and post one of these days, but not today.

I also have two important articles due this week, plus all the urgent stuff that stacked up whilst I was gone, so don't expect much more from me this week.

It's good to be home.

---

The Holy Spirit is not a failed Ed McMahon

by Dan Phillips

Most of our readers are old enough to remember Ed McMahon, the genial MC for The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson. His job was to announce the show, and introduce Johnny Carson. Then he sat out there, played straight man to Johnny, laughed at his jokes, made Carson look good.

Through the years, Carson had various guest hosts including, I think, Seinfeld, Leno, Letterman, and Brenner. Never, as far as I know, Ed McMahon.

(Here's a funny thing: I'll bet scores of folks are already offended at this post, without even knowing for certain where I'm going with it.)

My allusion to McMahon has one point, and one only: McMahon's job was go make another person look good, to draw attention to him. It was to produce anticipation, and then, with his famous "Heeeeere's Johnny!", to bring on the star of the show.

If the camera had remained on McMahon, if the spotlight had been trained on him, immediately we'd have known something was very wrong. Ed wasn't the focus. Nor have I ever heard that McMahon resented his role. In fact, when he wrote a book, it was titled Here's Johnny!, not Hey, Look at Me! McMahon's job was defined, he embraced it, and he did it well.

So, where am I going with this? Am I suggesting that the Holy Spirit, then, like Ed McMahon? In virtually no way. The august Person of God the Holy Spirit produced Scripture (2 Peter 1:21), was involved in Creation (Genesis 1:2), empowered Jesus' ministry (Luke 4:14), is the mode of believers' immersion into Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13), seals us until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30), and a great deal more. He is God.

But there is one point of analogy, and one only: the delight and joy of the Holy Spirit is not to train attention upon Himself. The Holy Spirit's great love, fascination, and focus, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before the Incarnation, the Spirit moved in the prophets. And of what did He speak through them? Among other things, He spoke of the sufferings of Christ, and of His glories to follow (1 Peter 1:11).

The Holy Spirit performed the miracle by which the virgin, Mary, became mother to the human nature of the Messiah (Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). He appeared at Jesus' baptism, not to flutter in mid-air while until everyone noticed and admired Him, but to rest on Christ, to mark Him out as Yahweh's anointed (Matthew 3:16; cf. Luke 4:18).

And so the power of the Spirit continued in the ministry of Jesus, to guide Him in what He did (Matthew 4:1), and to bring glory and honor to Jesus, marking Him as God's Son (Matthew 12:28; Acts 10:38). This He did preeminently in Jesus' resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

And what would the Spirit do after Christ's resurrection and ascension? More of the same. "He will glorify me," Jesus says of the Spirit, "for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14). It is worth repetition: "He will glorify me." In fact, the Greek is a bit more emphatic: "That one, Me will He glorify." The Spirit will come to bring glory, and it is to Jesus that He will bring this glory.

Imagine that. God though He is, personal though He is, the Spirit's aim is not to glorify Himself. It is to glorify Jesus. And how does the Holy Spirit do that? By imparting inerrant revelation to the apostles, revelation which we have today in the Bible alone. He did this by granting them inerrant memory of Jesus' words (John 14:26), by bearing witness to them about Jesus (John 15:26), by convicting the world of truths related in each case to Jesus (John 16:8-11), and by continuing to tell them the "many things" that Jesus still had to say to them (John 16:12-13). Jesus emphasizes this last point, assuring the apostles that the Spirit would not speak aph' heautou, from Himself, but rather from Jesus.

When the Holy Spirit wrote a book, what was it about? At least one has to confess that the Holy Spirit's recurrent theme, strain, melody, was the person and work of Christ (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; Acts 3:18; 10:43; 24:14; 26:22-23). If I may put it this way, you could almost re-title the New Testament "Here's Jesus."

Does it not follow, then, that the Spirit's presence and prevalence will show the impress of His personality, His grand interest?

So how do you know when the Spirit is present and prevalent in a man? By how the man relates to Jesus. He confesses Jesus as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:13). He has the character of Jesus (Galatians 5:22-23). He moves men to confess the incarnation of Jesus (1 John 4:2). He makes the presence and person of Christ real.

A man full of the Holy Spirit will be a great lover of Jesus, whom the Spirit loves, and of that great work of the Spirit, the Scriptures. That is, he will love Jesus, and he will love that Spirit-breathed witness to Christ, the written Word. He will passionately care about the truths of Christ, and of the Word. That will be the proof of the Spirit's rule in his heart.

So how can we evaluate a movement whose icon is a descending dove, who wishes thus to identify itself by a peculiar view of the Spirit and His works? What are we forced to conclude about a movement whose great concern is insisting on a few of what they mis-identify as the Spirit's gifts, after changing the definition and description He Himself had given in the Word?

What of men or women who wish to be distinguished from all other Christians by their view of the Spirit's work? People who do not tend to get much exercised when the person and work of Christ, and the Word of God, are misrepresented, attacked, slighted, smeared, rejected either outright or by implication—but who fly into action if anyone expresses skepticism about The Gifts{tm}? Who are known not for their robust defense of the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, nor of penal, substitutionary atonement, nor of the truth of by-grace-alone, forensic justification, nor of the imputed righteousness of Christ, nor of the exclusivity of Christ's claims and Gospel, nor of the objective nature of the Word's truth—but for the right to label an activity "prophecy" or "tongues," despite the fact that it does not approach the Spirit-breathed, Biblical definition?

As a pastor I again and again observed folks who could never be content in a church that seeks to be Christ-centered, and to preach the Word, if it doesn't engage in certain peripheral activities. They can't "feel the Spirit" without certain worship-styles, entertainments, play-times. For them, "feeling the Spirit"—not preaching Christ—is the be-all and end-all.

More to the point, what would the Spirit of God make of such a movement? Does it bear His impress, His mark? In Scripture, He is everywhere present and active, but He is always pointing to Christ, to the Father, to the work and words of God. Consider this: in contrast to the Father and the Son, no Scripture (that I can find) presents the Spirit as prayed to nor directly addressed, nor does any verse command believers to do so. I can't say that I'm sure I know what that means—but it means something.

To make another imperfect analogy, it is as if the Spirit's delight is to grab hold of the spotlight, and then to bring all attention to the Star of the show, Jesus Christ. But if we turn to the spotlight and focus on it, and on the one who mans it, can we think that His intent is honored?

What would be the mark of a genuine movement of the Spirit? Would it not be love for Christ, and for His Word, with resultant godliness and holiness?

... and not fascination with the Spirit?

---

The Love Shack

by Jolly Fat Man

OK -- you have 13 shopping days until Christmas, and I'm not even going to link to the Pawn Shop. That's just too obvious -- and besides: I'll bet you can't get your stuff in time now anyway. CafePress is fine and all that, but their fulfillment runs at about the speed that old men golf. The chatty ones.

Anyway, I had this 6-part series at my blog about Christmas which you'll have to read for yourself if you're interested because this is a blog for original stuff -- not recycled trash. Recycled Spurgeon, maybe -- but not trash. My point is that I took 6 parts to finish that series and I didn't get to say something. I couldn't figure out how to work it in, so I brought it over here. And it works in nicely with Dan's post from yesterday, so it's all gravy -- it's like we planned it.

I was on a bit about how the wrath of God is a sort of necessity in Christmas, and I got to the place where I was saying that we ought to love the incarnate Jesus to the degree that we have been spared the wrath of God -- that this is what Christmas ought to be all about.

So far, so good, right?

Listen: I couldn't figure out how to work in what it means to love the incarnate Christ. is that stupid? So that's the topic here -- loving Christ.

The first thing to say about that is, a real Jesus requires real love. One of the gripes I hear from non-believers (and nearly non-believers -- you know who you are) is that Christians are real emotional and relational clods. We don't really have a lot of emotional range -- we can get indignation out real good, and maybe stoic fortitude, but things like happy, compassionate, friendly in a non-salesman-like way, and all the upside of human emotional pitch seems to be someplace outside our repertoire. And honestly -- they have a small point. Even Bono -- who they might call a believer -- doesn't seem very happy even when he's doing whatever it is he says nobody else is doing.

But here's the thing: while loving Christ produces a real love for people, it must produce a real love and not merely an emotional love for people. Because it must itself be a real love for Christ and not merely a zinger-and-Code-red rush of emotional sugar for Jesus.

You know: Christ died for our sins. He was born and allowed himself to be birthed in a stable -- a cave or a shack -- and slept his first night in the air of Jerusalem Bethlehem (sorry -- that's what I get for being up late) in a feeding trough. They weren't expecting Him, and they didn't clean up the barn before he showed up -- it was a dirty place in a barn-like sort of way. And Jesus did that in order to die for our sins.

Think about what Christ gave up to then die for our sins. He gave up the throne of Heaven where he was only worshipped for the sake of growing up the son of a carpenter. He gave up having no needs to be was hungry from time to time. He gave up eternal perfection and beauty to smell like a person who didn't have any deodorant ever, and lived among people who were exactly like that. And he loved these people.

He loved them! He loved John the crazy baptizer who, after being thrown in prison, had his doubts about whether Jesus was the Christ, who even asked if he and his disciples should look for another Messiah. He loved Peter, and Peter was quite a pill -- one of those friends who was always making promises and not keeping them. He loved his mother who, even though she saw the angel and gave a virgin birth, doubted that Jesus was sane and pleaded with him to stop what he was doing. He loved Mary who had demons, and Martha who worked too hard, and Lazarus their brother.

Who do we love? I mean besides out spouses and our kids: who do we love in a way that is more than a wish of good luck to that person? Do you love anybody in an active and obvious way?

Would they agree with you that you do this?

Listen: in this way -- this Christmas way -- God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son. Gave His son! God did something about love at Christmas which people could see and hear and touch with their own hands. And we are called by His name to be a people like that given Son.

So this Christmas, with 13 shopping days left, take your mind off the cookies and the wrapping paper and the fake tree with the lights burned out, and think about the love that is manifest in the baby in the manger. Because that Love is not just a greeting card kind of love, and it's not a cue-the-orchestra kind of emotional state: that love is a working love, a living love which overcomes the world.

Be part of that love. And not just at Christmas, but maybe you could start at Christmas -- like a present to your conscience or something. I don't have any practical suggestions about how to do that because you people are all over the planet. But get off your KBs and pull yourself away from the blogs for a half hour and love someone the way Christ loves you -- that is, in a way which they do not deserve and that you can pay out lavishly.

There is no law against that kind of love.

---

...and you were going to do this, when?

by Dan Phillips

Take a look at this for a moment:


Big long line. Can't tell where it starts, and it just goes on, to the right. Oh, and a little bitty red dot on the left.

A verse I used to try to impress on my two older children, in homeschooling, was Ecclesiastes 9:10 —

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might,
for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

My intent was to discourage slack, inattentive, halfhearted work, and to encourage them to give their all to what they were doing. They'd not get their childhood again, they'd not get a chance to lay the foundations again. Now was the moment to act, and to act heartily.

Our lives are like that line. We're all going to exist forever; and we who have been saved by Christ are going to live forever. This little bit we're having now, this 20, 40, 60, or 80 years, is like that little red blip off to the left. It's a passing nothing. It starts, it's over.

But there are unique qualities to this life, there are onlies about this life.

In all eternity, in the thousands and millions of years that stretch on ahead of us, this is the only opportunity we'll have to walk by faith. Now we love Him and rejoice, though we don't see Him (1 Peter 1:8). Then we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2), shall see His face (Revelation 22:4).

Specifically, this is the only chance we'll have to honor our father and mother, to love our wives, to respect and subordinate ourselves to our husbands, to raise our children in Christ, to tell unbelievers of Jesus, to love our enemies.

This is the only chance we shall have to suffer for Christ, to accept suffering in faith, and rejoice in trial. It is the only opportunity to be humbled by our own personal thorns in the flesh, and know the grace and power of Christ in them.

Only now do we live in a time of warfare, strife, constant battle.

• We constantly battle — or are supposed to be battling — with our flesh and remaining corruption (Romans 7:14-25; 1 Peter 2:11)
• We wrestle with principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:11ff.)
• We contend with those who forsake the law (Proverbs 28:4)
• We know danger from false brothers (2 Corinthians 11:26)
• Insofar as we walk with the Lord, we live in a world that hates us (1 John 3:13)

This life is a battlefield. As far as we know, it is the only battlefield we shall ever experience. Therefore, it is the only opportunity we shall ever have to fight for the Lord, to do battle for Him, to overcome for Him, to score victories for Him, to win any trophies for the Crown.

So if we're going to do this, we need to do it now. Soon, all we shall have from this life is a once-in-eternity record. That, and a great many regrets, I wager.

Do you honestly imagine that there is any chance you'll regret trusting the Word too much? That you'll regret believing in God too heartily? That you'll regret giving too much of yourself to Him, in His service? That you'll regret having mortified the flesh too much, having walked in the Spirit too much? That you'll regret having been too godly of a husband, wife, parent, child, churchman, citizen? That you'll wish you'd indulged your fleshly passions more, loved the world more, pursued your private agenda more, absorbed yourself in the world's passing distractions more? That you'll wish you'd gotten more things, better things, and given less of your time and energies to the Word and the Lord?

I have wondered this often as I've seen believers going on and on in patterns of sin, laziness, stubborn disbelief and disobedience. Do they ever think thus? Do they ever think of the passing transience of this life (James 4:14)? Do they ever think of eternity, of the perspective of God, to say nothing of His judgment?

You've been in a pattern of fleshly indulgence in your marriage. You know what God calls you to, but you just won't do it. When were you going to start? Do you imagine that this is some sort of dress rehearsal, and real life, life that counts, will start... when? When were you going to start putting on the Lord Jesus, and making no provision for the flesh? When were you going to start putting to death the practices of the body? When?

You're a young adult about to leave home, but you've never learned to honor — honor! — your father and mother. Were you going to be born into some other household, and practice your Christian faith there? When?

And what to parents? My dear wife discovered a poem once called Babies Don't Keep. Forget that it brings tears to her eyes, she's a great mother — it brings tears to my eyes! I can't say it better.

You're in a church where you're hearing the Word, but you're doing nothing with it. You're not involved, not serving, not growing, not giving; indulging in self-absorbed fascinations. When were you going to start doing all those "one anothers"? In the Millennium? After?

You've heard the couplet; you're about to hear it again.

Only one life, 'twill soon be past
Only what's done for Christ will last.

This is a thought that haunts me, as I try to project myself forward, looking back at what is my present. The time God has given you and me to walk by faith and not by sight is now. In fact, that is the only time.

What should we be doing, that we aren't?

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The Joy of Trials

And why faith causes it.

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Frank Turk

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. As our brother Phil is prolly in an airport or an airplane today making sure Darlene gets home safely, I have found a little bit of Spurgeon for your weekend/Monday enjoyment. This exerpt, delivered on Lord's Day Morning, February 4th, 1883, is a little encouragement I found in Spurgeon's archive. Given what's going on at the D-Blog and from Antonio's corner of the blogosphere, I needed a glass of water. You should read the rest of this sermon just because, well, it's just fine.

And yes, I know that this is the same graphic Phil used last week. His picture server is a sort of locked box, and he only gives us a list of active links we can use on a ration system -- and the current list doesn't have any other pics of Spurgeon. So you get a repeet there.

Without further preface we will come at once to the text; and observe that in speaking about affliction, for that is the subject of the text, the apostle notes, first, the essential point which is assailed by temptation, namely, your faith. Your faith is the target that all the arrows are shot at; the furnace is kindled for the trial of your faith. Notice, secondly, the invaluable blessing which is thus gained, namely, the proving of your faith, discovering whether it be the right faith or no. This proof of our faith is a blessing of which I cannot speak too highly. Then, thirdly, we may not overlook the priceless virtue which is produced by this process of testing, namely, patience; for the proving of your faith produces patience, and this is the soul's surest enrichment. Lastly, in connection with that patience we shall note the spiritual completeness which is thus promoted:—"That ye may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." Perhaps you have noticed that little variations I have made in the text; but I am now following the Revised Version, which gives an admirable rendering. I will read it. "Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience. And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing."

I. First, let us think a little upon THE ESSENTIAL POINT WHICH IS ASSAILED by temptation or trial. It is your faith which is tried. It is supposed that you have that faith. You are not the people of God, you are not truly brethren unless you are believers. It is this faith of yours which is peculiarly obnoxious to Satan and to the world which lieth in the wicked one. If you had not faith they would not be enemies of yours; but faith is the mark of the chosen of God, and therefore his foes become the foes of all the faithful, spitting their venom specially upon their faith. God Himself hath put enmity between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed; and that enmity must show itself. The serpent bites at the heel of the true seed: hence mockings, persecutions, temptations, and trials are sure to beset the pathway to faith. The hand of faith is against all evil, and all evil is against faith. Faith is that blessed grace which is most pleasing to God, and hence it is the most displeasing to the devil. By faith God is greatly glorified, and hence by faith Satan is greatly annoyed. He rages at faith because he sees therein his own defeat and the victory of grace.

Because the trial of your faith brings honour to the Lord, therefore the Lord Himself is sure to try it that out of its trial praise may come to his grace by which faith is sustained. Our chief end is to glorify God, and if our trials enable us more fully to answer the end of our being it is well that they should happen unto us. So early in our discourse we see reason to count it all joy when we fall into manifold trials.

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Long as you're down there....

by Dan Phillips

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise...
(Proverbs 6:6)

The laboratory of the wise man was life itself. He didn't go to mountain tops for esoteric experiences. Wisdom could be found right where he was. Lady Wisdom was like a street evangelist, calling out in the very thick of things to anyone who would listen (Proverbs 1:20-21).

And so the wise man does not speak of hearing the very voice of God speaking directly to him, as to a "proper" prophet. God's wisdom comes to him as he ponders, reflects, thinks.

I passed by the field of a sluggard,
by the vineyard of a man lacking sense,
and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns;
the ground was covered with nettles,
and its stone wall was broken down.
Then I saw and considered it [more literally applied my heart/mind];
I looked and received instruction.
(Proverbs 24:30-32)

Likewise, the sage speaks to people where they are. They don't necessarily need to go to find him. He may seek them out, and find them.

And one of the wise man's favorite targets is the sluggard. The Hebrew root `-ts-l is singled out for the sage's barbs and parodies some fourteen times in Proverbs, of which this is the first occurrence. Various attempts have been made to capture him: God's Word Translation has "lazy bum"; NLT and NRSV have "lazybones"; The New Jerusalem Bible has "idler"; The Message has "you lazy fool"; commentator R. B. Y. Scott has "loafer."

What tickles me about the current passage is that Solomon talks to him right where he is. And where is he? On his belly, as usual (6:9; 26:14). "So," the wise king says,

"as long as you're down there, why don't you look at those little critters scurrying past your nose? My, they're busy, aren't they? Rushing here and there as if they are late for an appointment. Yet look around. Where's the whip? Where's the boss? Where's the taskmaster? Nowhere! But that little one there — what is that he's carrying? Why, it's a bit of food, isn't it. And the one behind him, he's carrying some too. And that knot of little fellows there, struggling along together... why, they've got a nice, plump grasshopper, haven't they? That should serve them well in the coming winter.

"But you? What are you doing? 'Just a bit of sleep,' that's all you want. 'Just a tad more slumber, just a wink or two.' And as suddenly as winter will fall on the ants, your poverty will leap upon you! Only they'll be ready, and you'll be destitute. I swear, you're dumber than a bug."

Seems as if nothing stops ants. Someone in our family had left a bit of a granola bar on an upper book shelf, in our living room. Not in the kitchen, not in the pantry. Not in a room filled with food, but with books — and I doubt ants read much.

Yet one industrious little scrabbler found it. Not only that, he hurried back and told his mates, and by the time we were aware, there was a black trail streaming across the floor, and up the book case. What industry, what diligence. It fairly takes the breath away.

There are lessons here on many levels. I'm only going to suggest a few, and leave it to you to flesh them out.

The financial is probably the most obvious. I saw a young man holding a sign, begging for money, on a busy street the other day. And smoking. And so I wondered, "How much are cigarettes, these days?"

And I wonder if he ever saw an ant, poring over his pack of smokes? Did he make any connection? Not yet, apparently.

But, while we're feeling all smug, what of us, lazily glancing over our Bibles from time to time — if we're even that regular?

Mark well, I'm not even talking at this point to our leaky-Canon brothers, who don't think that the Bible has all they need as Christians in the first place. Nor do I think of our doctrinally cattywhumpus visitors, whose view of the Bible is many miles below the Lord Jesus' estimation.

I speak to myself, and to you. To us Sola Scriptura types, who say we believe the Book is bursting with the living mind of God. But do we search it diligently for nourishment, as some lone ant searched my barren living room for food? Or do we distractedly glance over the Word as if it were weekly ad-circular? Less than that! Does our behavior bear out our creed? Or does it shame it?

Perhaps I could bear down on pastors, as well. How diligent are you in the care of your own soul, let alone those under your watch? Or in sermon preparation — is it performed as if you will be speaking before immortals, to immortals, in the presence of God? I shouldn't need to say anything about outright sermon-stealing; good heavens, man, if you've nothing to say, give your pulpit to someone who does. Give it to me! But what of unnecessary sermon-punting, sermon-ad-libbing, sermon-bobbling? Did you search the text as that ant did my house?

Or then, again, maybe I will have a word for the man (or woman) who has idly passed by here from time, has heard the Gospel, yet still hasn't stirred himself to do anything about what he's heard. Better still, I'll ask Mr. Spurgeon if he has a word.

Oh, good. It seems he does.

The worst of sluggards only ask for a little slumber; they would be indignant if they were accused of thorough idleness. A little folding of the hands to sleep is all they crave, and they have a crowd of reasons to show that this indulgence is a very proper one. Yet by these littles the day ebbs out, and the time for labour is all gone, and the field is grown over with thorns. It is by little procrastinations that men ruin their souls. They have no intention to delay for years-a few months will bring the more convenient season-to-morrow if you will, they will attend to serious things; but the present hour is so occupied and altogether so unsuitable, that they beg to be excused. Like sands from an hour-glass, time passes, life is wasted by driblets, and seasons of grace lost by little slumbers. Oh, to be wise, to catch the flying hour, to use the moments on the wing! May the Lord teach us this sacred wisdom, for otherwise a poverty of the worst sort awaits us, eternal poverty which shall want even a drop of water, and beg for it in vain. Like a traveller steadily pursuing his journey, poverty overtakes the slothful, and ruin overthrows the undecided: each hour brings the dreaded pursuer nearer; he pauses not by the way, for he is on his master’s business and must not tarry. As an armed man enters with authority and power, so shall want come to the idle, and death to the impenitent, and there will be no escape. O that men were wise be-times, and would seek diligently unto the Lord Jesus, or ere the solemn day shall dawn when it will be too late to plough and to sow, too late to repent and believe. In harvest, it is vain to lament that the seed time was neglected. As yet, faith and holy decision are timely. May we obtain them this night. (Morning and Evening, November 24, p.m.)

Amen.

There. Have we exhausted the text now? Not remotely. Welcome once again to the challenge, and joy, of Proverbs.

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The Tinker of Bedford

n Tuesday, Darlene and I went with Tom and Kathy McConnell and sons to Bedford to visit the Bunyan Meeting Free Church, whose name (of course) comes from their best-known pastor, John Bunyan (1628-1688).

In keeping with this week's theme, Bunyan was another uneducated preacher who had a few things in common with the Lollards. Like them, Bunyan was a severe irritant to the pompous hierarchy of the established church. Also like them, he was especially annoying to high-sacramentalist types who loved ceremonies and vestments more than powerful preaching, and who valued erudition more than plain speaking.

Between you and me, I think Bunyan also would have greatly appreciated this week's Dose-o'-Spurgeon.

So we're on a bit of a roll here, and I want to say another word or two about John Bunyan's career.

But first . . .

It appears I need to clarify something regarding Monday's dispatch about Wycliffe and the Lollards.

It has been brought to my attention that Kevin Johnson has managed to unearth from somewhere in the white spaces of that post several outlandish but unstated assertions that even I didn't know I had made. Kevin evidently feels I have somehow indicated that the Lollards were Reformed Baptists, or something like that. He is (to put it as mildly as possible) rather cross with me.

Now, Kevin rarely misses any opportunity to demonstrate how much he hates Baptists (and all evangelicals, for that matter). So we're not really surprised that reading PyroManiacs occasionally tends to elevate his sense of ecclesiastical outrage. This time, though, Kevin was left so thoroughly gobsmacked—so profoundly smitten with "stunned amazement" (his words)—that pretty much all he could do was sputter and fulminate.

Sadly, poor Kevin wasn't even able to recover his rational senses in time to point out or refute any of my actual statements that he disagreed with. But at least it was clear that he disagreed.

Moreover, he was by no means alone in his staggered sense of bewilderment. Most of the commenters over at "Reformed Catholicism" were nearly as stupefied as Kevin was.

Did I really suggest that the Lollards believed exactly as I do about all the distinctive points of my doctrinal stance? I would of course immediately retract and correct such a statement if I could find it in Monday's post. But since I didn't actually say that (or anything like it), and since I don't even hold a view that remotely approximates any form of "Baptist successionism" or any of the other grotesquely naïve caricatures Kevin loves so much to lampoon, I don't really have anything I can honestly retract.

And if my post contained any subliminal messages visible only to those wearing their cardboard episcopalian secret-decoder glasses, I was totally unaware of it.

I'll leave the post completely unedited and let more objective readers compare it with the comments made by Kevin Johnson and company. You can judge for yourself whether truth and accuracy really appear to be the driving concerns in Kevin's post. Compare his professed concern for honesty and objectivity in the handling of historical figures with the rhetorical way he distorts the views and statements of his own contemporary theological opponents. Then draw your own conclusions.

Anyway, I think it odd that men who profess to have so much esteem for "generosity" and "catholicity" instantly swarm so angrily whenever they think they see an opportunity to vituperate against evangelicals or Baptists.

That's OK. Kevin and friends were not one-tenth as outraged to see a picture of me in an Anglican pulpit as I am by the way Anglicans themselves have abused their own pulpits—and allowed them to be regularly misemployed by men (and women!) who possess all the right academic credentials and lots of initials after their names, but who have none of the spiritual qualifications for church leadership.

But that's a story for another post.

Back to Bunyan

John Bunyan was both poor and uneducated. He was born into a traveling tinker's family November 28, 1628 and lived a typically shallow and worldly life as a youth, caught up in the entertainments of the time. He followed his father's trade, becoming an itinerate tinker at an age when most youth of today are still in high school.

Tortured by fears and nightmares, and fearful that he might have already committed the unpardonable sin, he finally found peace and assurance in Christ through the gospel. He was baptized by immersion in 1653 and received into a Baptist church.

Within a few years he began preaching, and the response to his preaching was dramatic almost immediately. His sermons were imbued with pathos and delivered with amazing power.

Bunyan was concerned about the rising influence of early Quakerism, and that prompted him to take part in written debates with Quakers. This both prompted him to undertake an earnest study of doctrine and demonstrated his natural flair for writing.

Bunyan was put in jail in 1660 for preaching without a license. He could have been released at almost any time if he had merely promised to stop his unlicensed preaching. He refused, and was kept in prison for the better part of twelve years. He redeemed the time and worked to support his family by writing while in prison. Released in 1672, he became the pastor of the Bedford church.

In 1675, he was arrested and jailed for unlicensed preaching again, but the public outcry against his imprisonment was so fierce that this time he obtained release after just six months.

It's ironic that this uneducated workman became one of the best-known preachers of the Puritan age (an era rich with well-schooled pastors, theologians, and doctors of divinity). Perhaps it is even more ironic that such a man made so important a contribution to English literature—writing one of the greatest allegories of all time, Pilgrim's Progress.

That work was most likely begun during Bunyan's first imprisonment and completed during his final stint in jail. The work is in two parts, the first of which was originally released in 1678, three years after Bunyan's final release from the Bedford Jail. It may be the most popular book ever written in English. It was a favorite of Charles Spurgeon's, who read it at least once a year and said before he died that he had probably read it more than a hundred times.

Spurgeon wasn't the only important admirer of Bunyan. John Owen, probably the most prominent and respected academic leader of Bunyan's own era, once went to hear Bunyan preach. Charles II, hearing of it, asked the learned doctor of divinity why someone as thoroughly educated as he would want hear a mere tinker preach. Owen replied: "May it please your Majesty, if I could possess the tinker's abilities to grip men's hearts, I would gladly give in exchange all my learning."

Owen, of course, never joined any movement that was drifting in a Romish direction.



Anyway,

Today we're taking the train to London, where we'll be for the rest of the week. I'll be attending a board meeting of the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust this morning; calling in at the Metropolitan Tabernacle Book Shop and seeing Dr. Masters on Thursday; visiting the V&A (our first time there) on Friday; teaching a men's group, and then spending the day with Doug McMasters and family (who have recently relocated from California to pastor a church in the London area) on Saturday; and preaching in Doug's pulpit at Trinity Road Chapel in Upper Tooting on the Lord's Day morning.

I'll be back in California Monday evening, Lord willing. See you then.

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Very disparate cool things

by Dan Phillips

("Disparate." You thought I was going to say "Dispensational," didn't you? Come on, admit it. You did, didn't you? Eh? Eh? Hahahaha... ahem. Well, anyway....)

1. While I think British accents of virtually any shade are the coolest accents in the world, Scottish accents are the coolest of the cool. I wish I had either. Instead, I'm a Californian, and thus have no accent, whatever. But this guy sure does: hear James Frew reading off the Westminster Confession and the Shorter Catechism, in a great Scot accent! My only gripe is that it's all in little-bitty files, so you can't easily do a CD of it: you run out of tracks! (That same site links to some of his preaching. What I heard had great content, though the recording quality varied.)
2. Hebrews 9 and 10 are two of the most stirring chapters in the Bible. See a dramatic performance/recitation of them by Ryan Ferguson (h-t Joe Fleener, who has a knack for finding very cool things).
3. Do you have a compulsive need to control the order of your task bar buttons? I do. TaskArrange is your friend.
4. In fact, you can find a lot of cool freeware here. I've used some, and love it.
5. Is a Dell computer in your present, or near-future? They're great computers, but they come loaded with an awful lot of junk -- unnecessary programs, trial versions, and the like, nag-nag-nagging you every time you reboot. There is a very cool program that will help you. Now, even saying its name on Pyro will get you a warning, so don't. I'm serious. Don't blame me; I can't help what he called it. But you can find it here. You'll be glad you did. (It isn't limited to Dells, I believe.)
6. You hear a lot about A. W. Tozer, but did you know you can still actually hear him? Hear here. (First impression: crusty old dude, i'n'e?) You can also hear such wildly varied (in doctrine and quality) speakers as Harry Ironside, Ray Comfort, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Max Lucado, John Piper, Keith Green and Stephen King. Oh, wait -- Stephen Kaung. Don't know him. Anyway, discernment is needed. Now, I also see they've got Charles Spurgeon, and D. L. Moody, but I'm thinking they're not original recordings. You'll also find John Murray there, but unfortunately I've yet to locate very good-quality recordings of the professor.
7. Though he dis me, yet I (for my part) continue to speak only well of him: James White expresses concern that this recording is incomplete, but still it is a good and informative example of brotherly debate concerning the meaning of baptism.
8. And finally, appropos of absolutely nothing — WILHELM!

I may well make this an occasional feature, but that's it for now.

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Lollardy

iggybacking on the theme introduced here by Spurgeon yesterday, I want to say a word about the Lollards today.

OK, this is actually a not-very-subtle way of sneaking one of those confounded this-is-where-I-am-right-now-type posts in the back door, because today Darlene and I are in the English midlands, and we visited St. Mary's parish church in Lutterworth, where John Wycliffe served as rector in the fourteenth century.

On Dec. 28, 1384, Wycliffe had a stroke while leading a service here and was carried out on his chair through the diminutive door in the photo at the left. He died three days later.

Wycliffe was a consummate scholar and churchman, so it may seem ironic that the movement he inspired was a campaign led by lay preachers without formal education, known for the simplicity and directness of their preaching, and who operated outside the established church. The Lollards were one of the bright spots of late medieval church history, and they laid the foundation for the Protestant Reformation in England. You can read about them here or here.

Wycliffe, of course, is known as "the Morning Star of the Reformation." He was a harsh critic of priestly and ecclesiastical corruption and an early advocate of practical and theological reform in the church. He was the first to call the Pope "Antichrist." He taught predestination, opposed the doctrine of transubstantiation, and above all, believed the Bible should be translated into the vernacular. His translation, based on Jerome's Vulgate (the only source text Wycliffe had access to), was the first-ever English version of the Scriptures.

Wycliffe and the Lollards created so much trouble for the Pope that in 1415 (30 years after Wycliffe's death), the Roman Catholic Council of Constance condemned him as a stiff-necked heretic on 267 counts, ordered his books to be burned, and formally excommunicated him. They decreed that his bones should be exhumed from their resting-place in this parish church, burned, crushed, and scattered in the river Swift (a tributary of the River Avon).

Twelve years later this decree had not yet been carried out. Pope Martin V was enraged by this and personally ordered that the bones of Wycliffe be dealt with immediately according to the Council's wishes. That order was dutifully carried out in December 1427 by the toadying Bishop of Lincoln, Richard Fleming, who had actually been one of Wycliffe's earliest students.

Wycliffe is disinhumed,
Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed,
And flung into the brook that travels near;
Forthwith that ancient Voice which streams can hear
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind):
As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
Into the Avon—Avon to the tide
Of Severn—Severn to the narrow seas—
Into main ocean they,—this deed accurst,
An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold Teacher’s Doctrine sanctified
By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.

William Wordsworth

Many of the Lollards were made martyrs as well, but they continued their ministry underground. The speed with which the Reformation overtook England is owing in large part to their faithful work.

May their tribe increase.

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The Virtue of Simple Doctrine, Preached Simply

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote space at the beginning of each week to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from a sermon titled "Pentecost," preached on Sunday Morning, 24 May 1863.

et me tell you that it is one of the blessed effects of the Holy Spirit to make ministers preach simply. You do not want the Holy Spirit to make them ride the high horse and mount up on the wings of the spread-eagle to the stars; what is wanted is to keep them down, dealing with solemn subjects in an intelligible manner.

What was the theme of Peter's Pentecost sermon? Was it something so intellectual that nobody could comprehend it, or so grand that few could grasp it? No, Peter just rises up and delivers himself somewhat like this—"Jesus Christ of Nazareth lived among you; he was the Messiah promised of old; you crucified him, but in his name there is salvation, and whosoever among you will repent and be baptized shall find mercy."

That is all! I am sure Mr. Charles Simeon in his "Skeleton Sermons" would not have inserted it as a model, and I do not suppose that any college professor alive would ever say to his students—"If you want to preach, preach like Peter."

Why, I do not perceive firstly, secondly, thirdly, and fourthly, to which some of us feel compelled to bind ourselves. It is in fact a commonplace talking about sublime things—sublime things which in this age are thought to be foolishness and a stumbling-block. Well then, may the Spirit of God be poured out to teach our ministers to preach plainly, to set our young men talking about Jesus Christ, for this is absolutely necessary.

When the Spirit of God goes away from a Church it is a fine thing for oratory, because then it is much more assiduously cultivated. When the Spirit of God is gone, then all the ministers become exceedingly learned, for not having the Spirit they need to supply the emptiness his absence has made, and then the old-fashioned Bible is not quite good enough; they must touch it up a bit and improve upon it, and the old doctrines which used to rejoice their grandmothers at the fire-side are too stale for them; they must have an improved and a new theology, and young gentlemen now-a-days show their profound erudition by denying everything that is the ground, and prop, and pillar of our hope, and starting some new will-o'-the-wisp which they set their people staring at.

Ah! well, we want the Spirit of God to sweep all that away. Oh that my dear sister who conducts the female class, and all who are in the Sunday-school, may be helped just to talk to you about Christ. When you get the Spirit of God to come upon you like fire and like a rushing mighty wind it will not be to make you doctors of divinity, and scholars, and great elocutionists; it will only be just for this, to make you preach Christ, and preach him more simply than ever you did before.

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BlogSpotting

by Frank Turk

It's a no-frills BlogSpotting today as I don't have Phil's patience to format the word "BlogSpotting" every time it comes up. And, of course, I'm not quite as nice.

• Apparently "Martin Luther" thinks Dan is very Lutheran for his "Depression" post. Dan the baptist who is a member of a Presbyterian church.
• Someone called "Prydain" calls Dan "Rev. Phillips" and thinks his "...neither were they thankful..." post "really gives us a lot to think about".
• Jim Hatfield took time out to liveblog Phil in October and technorati thinks it happened 3 days ago.
• "In through the Front Door" thinks TeamPyro is funnier than Marc Heinrich. That's because there are three of us and only 1.3 of him.


• Speaking of Marc Heinrich, he wondered if this post would get him a blogspotting link. The answer is yes.
  
• Linking to Justin Taylor is sort of against my groove because he's already famous, well-liked, and frankly successful—you know, as opposed to me—but he provides a link to Phil's YouTube pick "Worst Burglar Ever", which made my whole family laugh one day while we were all sick in the fist half of the week, so JT gets some link-love for being real.
• Perhaps Canadian blogger "Challies" (you may have heard of him—he liveBlogs a lot of things because apparently he needs other people to fill his blog with interesting ideas—just like Phil) thinks Phil was "lethargic" in his DIY Blogspotting post. Perhaps if Phil had called it a "blog carnival", Challies would have been more loving.
• Naomi Foflygen gets a blogspot link not because of her pithy prose but because I couldn't say "Foflygen" 10 times fast.

OK? No pretty formatting or whatever, but that's what I found in Technorati, proving that Pecadillo and I are the two least-interesting members of this group blog by far.

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