Tuesday, June 26, 2012

We Wrestle not Against Flesh and Blood - Matthew Henry

We Wrestle not Against Flesh and Blood - Matthew Henry




Matthew Henry playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D7D28E0CDFFEA3D6



Matthew Henry (1662-1714) was a 17th and early 18th Century minister of the Gospel and Calvinist biblical exegete in Chester, England, and died in 1714. Quoting Charles Spurgeon: "First among the mighty for general usefulness we are bound to mention the man whose name is a household word, Matthew Henry. He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, terse and trustworthy...."



He was born near Wales on October 18, 1662 and was primarily home-educated by his father, Rev. Philip Henry, and also at the Thomas Doolittle academy from 1680-1682. He first started studying law in 1686, but instead of pursuing a career in law he began to preach in his neighborhood.



After the declaration of liberty of conscience by James II in 1687, he was privately ordained in London, and on June 2, 1687, he began his regular ministry as non-conformist pastor of a Presbyterian congregation at Chester. He remained in this position for 25 years. After declining several times offers from London congregations, he finally accepted a call to Hackney, London, and began his ministry there May 18, 1712, shortly before his death.



His reputation rests upon his renowned commentary, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (1708-10, known also as Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible). He lived to complete it only as far as to the end of the Acts, but after his death other like-minded authors prepared the remainder from his manuscripts. This work was long celebrated as the best English commentary for devotional purposes and the expanded edition was initially published in 1896. Instead of critical exposition, his focuses on practical suggestion, and his commentaries contains rich stores of truths. There is also a smaller devotional commentary on the Bible from Henry known as Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary.



Thursday, June 21, 2012

"You still think you are a good person?" #367

"On the Box" is a daily (Monday through Friday) live, 27-minute, web-based talk show hosted by Ray Comfort and the Living Waters team. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/on-the-box
Episode #367

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

"Why would a God of LOVE send Someone to Hell?"

Mark Spence, from Living Waters, teaches why a God of love would send someone to Hell.

This segment is taken from The Way of the Master TV show, Episode: Amsterdam.

To order the complete episode of this DVD along with special features please go here:
http://www.livingwaters.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=f...

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

As he Snuffs the Gale of Popular Applause - John Angell James

As he Snuffs the Gale of Popular Applause - John Angell James

John Angell James Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PLE50E39BA700E815A

2 Corinthians 6:4 But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God...

John Angell James (1785-1859) was an English Nonconformist clergyman and writer.

He was born at Blandford Forum. After seven years apprenticeship to a linen-draper in Poole, Dorset, he decided to become a preacher, and in 1802 he went to David Bogue's training institution at Gosport in Hampshire. A year and a half later, on a visit to Birmingham, his preaching was so highly esteemed by the congregation of Carrs Lane Independent chapel that they invited him to exercise his ministry amongst them; he settled there in 1805, and was ordained in May 1806. For several years his success as a preacher was comparatively small; but he became suddenly popular in about 1814, and began to attract large crowds. At the same time his religious writings, the best known of which are The Anxious Inquirer and An Earnest Ministry, acquired a wide circulation.

James was a typical Congregational preacher of the early 19th century, massive and elaborate rather than original. His preaching displayed little or nothing of Calvinism, the earlier severity of which had been modified in Birmingham by Edward Williams, one of his predecessors. He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance and of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Municipal interests appealed strongly to him, and he was also for many years chairman of Spring Hill (afterwards Mansfield) College. He was also an ardent slavery abolitionist, and is portrayed in the huge canvass depicting Clarkson's opening address at the world's first International Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, in the National Portrait Gallery, London. He died in Birmingham.

A collected edition of James's works appeared in 1860-1864.

Monday, June 18, 2012

"I Believe in Total Oblivion."

Ray Comfort shares the Gospel with Justin at Cerritos College in California

Friday, June 15, 2012

This City has so Aroused My Anger and Wrath! - John Angell James stack45ny Subscribed

John Angell James Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PLE50E39BA700E815A

A Treasury of Ageless,
Sovereign Grace,
Devotional Writings http://www.gracegems.org/

Jeremiah 32:1 'For this city has been to Me a provocation of My anger and My fury from the day that they built it, even to this day; so I will remove it from before My face'

John Angell James (1785-1859) was an English Nonconformist clergyman and writer.

He was born at Blandford Forum. After seven years apprenticeship to a linen-draper in Poole, Dorset, he decided to become a preacher, and in 1802 he went to David Bogue's training institution at Gosport in Hampshire. A year and a half later, on a visit to Birmingham, his preaching was so highly esteemed by the congregation of Carrs Lane Independent chapel that they invited him to exercise his ministry amongst them; he settled there in 1805, and was ordained in May 1806. For several years his success as a preacher was comparatively small; but he became suddenly popular in about 1814, and began to attract large crowds. At the same time his religious writings, the best known of which are The Anxious Inquirer and An Earnest Ministry, acquired a wide circulation.

James was a typical Congregational preacher of the early 19th century, massive and elaborate rather than original. His preaching displayed little or nothing of Calvinism, the earlier severity of which had been modified in Birmingham by Edward Williams, one of his predecessors. He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance and of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Municipal interests appealed strongly to him, and he was also for many years chairman of Spring Hill (afterwards Mansfield) College. He was also an ardent slavery abolitionist, and is portrayed in the huge canvass depicting Clarkson's opening address at the world's first International Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, in the National Portrait Gallery, London. He died in Birmingham.

A collected edition of James's works appeared in 1860-1864.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Missing Presence of God by Martyn Lloyd Jones

The work and ministry of sermonindex can be encapsulated in this one word: REVIVAL. sermonindex is not a organisation, business, or any attempt by man to build something for God. It is rather a expression of a heart burden to see the Church revived and brought back to holiness, purity, and power with God. "The mission of SermonIndex is the preservation and propogation of classical vintage preaching and the promotion of genuine biblical revival to this generation."

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Matt Chandler - Irreverent, Silly Myths

"A Shepherd and His Unregenerate Sheep"
2009 Desiring God Conference for Pastors
February 3, 2009

Full message @: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1620_shepherds_and_unregenerate_sheep/

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Wretched: New Apostolic Nuttiness

See more at: http://www.wretchedradio.com

Ravi Zacharias Q & A: Did Man Create God and What About Those Who Haven't Heard?

Ravi Zacharias answers a question on whether God was created by man because of his fear of death and another question about those who haven't heard the Gospel.

The questions were posed during a Pastor's Conference.

The audio was downloaded from www.rzim.org under the podcast Just Thinking.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

The Truth Project - What is Truth?

What is Truth? Who is God? Who is Man? What is a worldview? Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?

Only 9 percent of professing Christians have a biblical worldview, and because of this, today's believers live very similarly to non-believers. A personal sense of significance is rarely experienced, we spend our money and time on things that fail to satisfy and we begin to wonder what life's ultimate purpose really is. We are, in short, losing our bearings as a people and a nation.

The Truth Project is an innovative DVD curriculum that teaches viewers how to develop a systematic and comprehensive biblical worldview. Educator Dr. Del Tackett is both engaging and winsome as he teaches Christians to apply biblical truths to every area of life. As it has been throughout history, God continues to call ordinary people to make an eternal difference in our world.


Visit The Truth Project Website:
http://www.thetruthproject.com

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Love Your Enemies, Huh?

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http://theresurgence.com/2012/05/10/love-your-enemies-huh

Notes from Douglas Wilson

In this clip, Christopher is taking issue with the heart and soul of Christian living, which is love. This is Christopher at the top of his enfant terrible form—attacking love! He will be kicking puppies next, trying to get all the Christians to gasp and go white in the face.

Love for God and neighbor is the summation of all the law and the prophets. Love describes the way God is, and the command to love is really a command to be like God. To obey it (by grace) is to bring yourself into conformity with ultimate reality. But Christopher didn’t like being told what to do, and he especially didn’t like being commanded to love. He regarded this kind of love as an extraordinary bit of luck, if it happens to you, but it could not be a rule to be followed. And he reserved a special ire for the command that Scripture gives to us when we are told to love our enemies. That is something that Christopher flatly refused to do.

But let us stop and reflect for a moment. One of Christopher’s favorite tricks was that of saying shocking things, and this was designed to get us to stop thinking about what was just said. In the previous outtake from Collision, his complaint against God was that God treated his enemies in exactly the way that Christopher was insisting (now) that our enemies must be treated. In short, in the previous clip, how dare God send his enemies to hell? In this clip, how dare God interfere with our attempts to send them there?

Cornelius Van Til once used the illustration of a rebellious child who needs to sit on his father’s lap in order to slap him. In order to attack God, a rebel must pick some place to stand (which necessarily must be an attribute of God’s considered in isolation) in order to be able to be critical of another of God’s attributes. These two video clips provide a perfect illustration of the technique. In this clip, Christopher uses the doctrine of justice to attack God’s words concerning love. In the previous clip, sitting at the same table, he was using the reality of God’s love to attack God’s words concerning justice.

G.K. Chesterton once said that it began to look as though Christianity were not big enough to encompass any errors, but rather that any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with.

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Because He Wrote a Book

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http://theresurgence.com/2012/05/31/because-he-wrote-a-book

Notes from Douglas Wilson

In this segment from our debate in the fall of 2008, the late Christopher Hitchens asks me why I kept saying things like “God wants . . .” How on earth could I possibly know something like that?
The question at root is one of epistemology. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that asks how we can know that we actually know anything. And, trotting briskly on the squirrel cage run we have climbed on, when we finally answer the question of how we know things, we can then be asked if we are sure we know that.

There are three basic approaches to this question. One is called rationalism, with claims to knowledge based on objective reason. The second is called empiricism, with all knowledge derived out of experience. The third, embraced by Christians, is an epistemology of revelation: We know what God wants because he made a point of telling us. We know because he wrote a book.
Belief in God’s revelation does not exclude reason or experience—rather it creates an appropriate place for them.
Now of course it should be noted that belief in God’s revelation does not exclude reason or experience—rather it creates an appropriate place for them. After all, when I have read the Bible, I think and reflect on what I have read, using reason. Not only that, but in reading Scripture I have the physical experience of holding the Bible in my hands, and having light rays bounce off the page toward my eyes, which are experiences. In all this, I am assuming (believing) that I live in a universe in which the Creator of it speaks. If he is speaking, I don’t have to make him heard—he does that. What I must do is take my fingers out of my ears and stop humming the national anthem.

Now of course, a talented unbeliever (like Hitchens) is going to try to push all of this back one step. How do you know God wrote a book? And the answer to that is . . . well, I have read it. Of course, that reply might well remind Hitchens of the time Mark Twain was asked if he believed in infant baptism. He replied with something like, “Believe in it, sir? I have seen it done with my own eyes!”
In this clip, I mentioned to Hitchens that all finite creatures think axiomatically. We all have a starting point, and that starting point is not our destination. We do not reason toward our axioms; we reason from them. They are the ground beneath our feet. They are our foundational assumptions, our staring presuppositions. I mention the basic one in this segment when I referred to Francis Schaeffer’s book He Is There and He Is not Silent. God is not the ultimate mime.

God has spoken, first, in the created order. The heavens declare God’s majesty. He has spoken, secondly, through his apostles, prophets, visionaries, and martyrs. We have their accounts in Scripture, the only ultimate and infallible book in the world. And lastly, God has spoken to us through his Son, our Lord Jesus.

This is where I begin my journey. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7). And to fear the Lord means listening to him when he speaks.

Monday, June 04, 2012

By What Standard?

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http://theresurgence.com/2012/04/29/by-what-standard

A few years ago, a documentary called Collision was made where Douglas Wilson debated Christopher Hitchens on Is Christianity Good for the World? Hundreds of hours of footage was shot and edited down to 90 minutes of solid debate and conversation. The clip you see above didn't make into that 90 minutes. Consider it deleted scenes. This is the first time it's being released, and we have it here for you to learn what it means and looks like to make a defense for your faith.


Notes from Douglas Wilson

When it comes to apologetics, the question, “By what standard?” really is a fundamental question. The same question arises in disputes on many playgrounds—it's the same thing as asking, “Who says?” If you claim that I have to do something, the question should come back, "Why do I have to do this?" It is at this point that a presuppositional approach to apologetics has its cleanest shot. A good place to go to study this approach further would be something like Greg Bahnsen’s Always Ready.
During our three days together making Collision, this was one of the few times where Christopher was brought up short. I think it was because the question here was a complete novelty for him, and he needed a moment to think about it.

When he tries to answer the “By what standard?” question, notice how he smuggles in the assumption that I am asking him to prove. He says that he knows certain (moral) realities because he is among the “higher primates.” But there is a word in there that is value-laden—higher. Higher by what standard? What are we talking about?

Christopher set up the next exchange nicely by acknowledging that as primates, we have a jumble of conflicting instincts. The response I offered was something I first learned from C.S. Lewis. If I have two competing and contradictory instincts, an evolutionary approach can account for each of those instincts (say, self-preservation and herd preservation). What it cannot account for is a third instinct that tells me which of the first two instincts I ought to obey in this instance. I do not have an “umpire” instinct that decides between them.

What I do have is a conscience, which cannot be accounted for apart from God. Christopher tries to take a “conscience vote” among the students there when he brings up the question of eternal torment. But we don’t need a conscience vote. We need to account for why we have consciences in the first place.

Friday, June 01, 2012

Thomas Watson - All Enameled and Interwoven with Free Grace

Thomas Watson - All Enameled and Interwoven with Free Grace

Thomas Watson playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9B58A93B5F60F495

http://www.gracegems.org/

Thomas Watson (1620-1686)

All of Thomas Watson's writings and sermons are replete with sound doctrine, practical wisdom, and heart-searching application. His profound spirituality, gripping remarks, practical illustrations, and beauty of expression make him one of the most irresistible of the Puritans.

He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was noted for remarkably hard study. In 1646 he was commenced a sixteen year pastorate at St. Stephen's Walbrook. In 1651 he was imprisoned briefly with some other ministers for his share in Christopher Love's plot to recall Charles II. He was released on 30th June,1652, and was formally reinstated vicar of St. Stephen's Walbrook. He obtained great fame and popularity as preacher until the Restoration, when he was ejected for nonconformity. Notwithstanding the rigor of the acts against dissenters, Watson continued to exercise his ministry privately as he found opportunity. Upon the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 he obtained a license for the great hall in Crosby House. After preaching there for several years, his health gave way, and he retired to Barnston in Essex, where he died suddenly while praying in secret. He was buried on 28th July, 1686.