You are welcome to post quotes that you think are edifying.
“The crucial issue, of course, is not whether one is “progressive” or not, or a
“traditionalist” or not: one could be a progressive in a good or a bad sense, and a
traditionalist in a good or a bad sense. Such labels, by themselves, are frequently
manipulative and rarely add much clarity to complex matters. The real issue is
whether or not one is holding to the apostolic Gospel, whether or not one is continuing in the teaching of Christ. That is the perennial test” D.A. Carson
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May 31, 2010 at 2:13 pm
matoke
we can urge others to respond to the teaching of God’s Word with total abandon, with radical commitment, etc. But in a very real sense we can only “raise the bar” for others to the level it is raised in our own lives. We don’t need to flaunt our own commitment or sacrifices, but they do speak loud and clear to our listeners. So we should be sure to prayerfully take stock of our own responsiveness to the Lord.” Peter Mead.
May 31, 2010 at 2:23 pm
matoke
Nevertheless, I wonder how best to make clear in this definition that biblical preaching is not merely a matter of textual study, distillation and communication, but is also always a ministry God does? Perhaps it could be modified in this way, “God empowers effective preaching that makes clear and compelling the one thing that His inspired text makes most central.” P. Mead
May 31, 2010 at 2:30 pm
matoke
Too many people misunderstand mentoring and end up in a faulty cloning situation. Either the mentor tries to force the next generation into an old mold, or the new preacher ends up copying someone that isn’t them. Mentoring is about resourcing, equipping, training and launching the person being mentored . . . – P. Mead.
June 7, 2010 at 6:03 am
Matoke
Our temptations,like Israel’s, vary with our circumstances: faithless fear in one circumstance, arrogant pride in another. Only the closest walk with God affords us the self-criticism that abominates both. Carson.
INTERSPERSED WITH THE HISTORICAL RECITAL that makes up much of the early chapters of Deuteronomy are bursts of exhortation. One of the most moving is found
in Deuteronomy 10:12-22. Its magnificent themes include:
(1) A sheer God-centeredness that embraces both fearing God and loving God
(10:12-13). In our confused and blinded world, fearing God without loving him
will dissolve into terror, and thence into taboos, magic, incantations, rites; loving
God without obeying him will dissolve into sentimentalism without strong affec-
tion, pretensions of godliness without moral vigor, unbridled lust for power with-
out any sense of impropriety, nostalgic yearnings for relationships without any
passion for holiness. Neither pattern squares with what the Bible says: “And now,
O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God,
to walk in all his ways, to love him . . . ?” (10:12).
(2) A sheer God-centeredness that pictures election as a gracious act. God
owns the whole show—“the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and
everything in it” (10:14). He can do with it as he wishes. What he has in fact done
is “set his affection” on the patriarchs, loving them, and in turn choosing their
descendants (10:15; cf. 4:37).
(3) A sheer God-centeredness that is never satisfied with the mere rites and
show of religion: it demands the heart (10:16). That is why physical circumcision
could never be seen as an end in itself, not even in the Old Testament. It sym-
bolized something deeper: circumcision of the heart. What God wants is not
merely an outward sign that certain people belong to him, but an inward dispo-
sition of heart and mind that orient us to God continually.
(4) A sheer God-centeredness that recognizes his impartiality, and therefore
his justice—and acts accordingly (10:17-20). He is “God of gods and Lord of
lords, the great God, mighty and awesome” (10:17). Small wonder then that he
accepts no bribes and shows no partiality. (Never confuse election with partiality.
Partiality is favoritism that is corrupted by a willingness to pervert justice for the
sake of the favored few; election chooses certain people out of God’s free decision
and nothing else, and even then justice is not perverted: hence the cross.) And he
expects his people to conduct themselves accordingly.
(5) A sheer God-centeredness that is displayed in his people’s praise (10:20-
22). “He is your praise; he is your God” (10:21). Those who focus much on God
have much for which to praise. Those whose vision is merely terrestrial or self-
centered dry up inside like desiccated prunes. God is your praise! (Carson, June6)
June 8, 2010 at 6:45 am
matoke
“If we play down our sinfulness, we’ll play down our gratitude for the magnitude of God’s love and forgiveness.”
June 8, 2010 at 6:53 am
matoke
“Christian fellowship is so much more than hanging out with friends,” says Claudia Anderson, a member at CHBC. “It involves spiritual intimacy, support, learning, counseling, and stunning acts of kindness.”
June 14, 2010 at 2:28 pm
matoke
“In Isaiah 46:3-7, God says, in effect, that idolaters have to carry their gods, and even their beasts of burden get tired; but with the true God, it is the other way around: he carries his people. It is hard not to perceive a contrast between two religions. In the one, the people do all the heavy lifting; in the other, God does it, and his people are carried by him” Carson.
” It is always wrong to argue from providence to ethics, or to establish who is “right” by who wins in a particular context, or to doubt that God may sovereignly use an evil person to
accomplish a great good without thereby exonerating or justifying all the evil in
his or her life.” Carson.
June 14, 2010 at 2:35 pm
matoke
“It is not open sin, or open unbelief, which robs Christ of His professing servants, so much as the love of the world, the fear of the world, the cares of the world, the business of the world, the money of the world, the pleasures of the world, and the desire to keep in touch with the world. This is the great rock on which thousands of young people are continually making shipwreck. They do not object to any article of the Christian faith. They do not deliberately choose evil and openly rebel against God. They hope somehow to get to heaven at last, and they think it proper to have some religion. But they cannot give up their idol: they must have the world. And so after running well and bidding fair for heaven while boys and girls, they turn aside when they become men and women and go down the broad way which leads to destruction. They begin with Abraham and Moses and end with Demas and Lot’s wife.” J. Ryrie
June 16, 2010 at 3:35 pm
matoke
“Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future?
But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction.
Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.” Pascal
June 28, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Andrew Matoke
(from Theo Source)
We guard most closely what we most treasure.
Solomon, out of his painful experience, pleaded with his children,
Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.
(Proverbs 4:23)
What is it you most protect? Your reputation? Your investments? Your family? Of all you guard, says Solomon, guard nothing with the care and strength you guard your affections. Once your heart latches onto something, you will not be able to stop your will from consenting to it.
…Fix your affections on God himself, in his beauty and glory. Fix your heart on the Lord Christ, the fairest of ten thousand, the desired of the nations. Get worked up about the mystery of the gospel, all the wisdom and love of God displayed in Christ, and all the blessings he delivers to your soul. If you’re going to revel in and relish something, be like Paul:
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)
Let the sorrows of your Savior on the cross move you. Imagine his cries and groans in your behalf, till your heart breaks. Daydream about how much love he showed you as he hung naked in your place. And see if the baits and lures of the flesh don’t grow ugly and repulsive. Will you give your hours to fantasizing about and dwelling on and longing for the vile things that nailed the Lover of your soul to the cursed tree?
June 28, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Andrew Matoke
Heart-work is hard work indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with
a loose anal heedless spirit, will cost no great pains; but to set thyself before the Lord, and tie up thy loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon him; this will cost thee something. To attain a facility and dexterity of language in prayer, and put thy meaning into apt
and decent expressions, is easy; but to get thy heart broken for sin, while thou art confessing it; melted with free grace while thou art blessing God for it; to be really ashamed and humbled though the apprehensions of God’s infinite holiness, and to keep thy heart in this frame, not only in, but
after duty, will surely cost thee some groans and pains of soul. To repress the outward acts of sin, and compose the external part of thy life in a laudable manner, is no great matter; even carnal persons, by the force of common principles, can do this: but to kill the root of corruption within,
to set and keep up an holy government over thy thought, to have all things lie straight and orderly in the heart, this is not easy. – Flavel
July 24, 2010 at 8:17 pm
matoke
We must be very faithful in every part of our ministerial works, and make conscience to magnify our office. In a particular manner, we must take good heed to our preaching; that it be not only sound, but instructive, savory, spiritual, very awakening and searching, well adapted to the times and seasons which pass over us; laboring earnestly herein. We must therefore dwell much upon the doctrine of repentance and conversion; the nature, necessity and evidence thereof; and much urge the duty of self-examination, and open the deceits of the heart: bringing the unconverted under the work of the law, that they may be prepared to embrace the offer of the gospel. Moral duties must be treated of in an evangelical strain; and we must give unto everyone his portion, and not shrink from it, under the notion of prudence; in special, in the important duty of reproving sinners of all sorts, be they who they will. Again, we must not be flighty in our private conference with souls, and examining candidates for the communion, or other special privileges; and we must carefully and wisely suit our endeavors to the several ages and conditions of persons, the elder and younger. And in a very particular manner, we must set ourselves to promote religion among our young people. And in a word, we must see whether we are animated to all these things by the grace of God in us.
July 24, 2010 at 8:20 pm
matoke
We must conscientiously be exemplary in our whole behavior and conversation. ‘Tis necessary that we be serious and grave, as what highly becomes gospel-bishops. And especially, we must be very watchful over our frame and conduct on the Lord’s day. We must therefore look well to our sabbatizing, both at home and abroad, both before our own and other people. Our example is of vast consequence in magnifying our office, before recommended.(last 2 copied from Immoderate blog)
July 24, 2010 at 8:30 pm
matoke
The palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity – C. Patton
August 2, 2010 at 3:51 pm
matoke
A verdict reversed
It is hard for us to grasp, let alone to feel, how completely the verdict seemed to have gone against Jesus when he died, and how in consequence the apostles’ past hopes had been extinguished. Jesus had been condemned in a Jewish court for blasphemy by duly authorized legal procedures. He was then sentenced and executed for sedition by the Romans. Worse, he had been ‘hanged on a tree’ and therefore (according to Dt. 21:22-23) had died under the curse of God. After that, he was taken down from the cross and buried, which was the final touch in disposing of him. The public rejection of Jesus could not have been more thorough. At every dimension he was finished – judicial, political, spiritual and physical. Religion, law, God, man and death had all conspired to wipe him off the face of the earth. It was all over now. The verdict was as decisive as it could possibly have been. No power on earth could ever rescue or reinstate him. But the apostles had left out of account the resurrection power of God. Small wonder that their earliest proclamation could be summarized in the words, ‘You killed him, but God raised him’. And in raising him, God reversed the verdict which had been passed on him … In other words, by raising Jesus, God was making a declaration about him, and in particular was turning all human opinions about him upside down. Condemned for blasphemy, he was now designated Son of God by the resurrection. Executed for sedition, for claiming to be a king, God made him ‘both Lord and Christ’. Hanged on a tree under the curse of God, he was vindicated as the Saviour of sinners, the curse he bore being due to us and not to him.
“The Authentic Jesus” (London: Marshalls; Downers Grove: IVP, 1985), p. 45.
August 2, 2010 at 4:00 pm
matoke
There are three final lessons which I learned from the cross. First, that my sin is foul beyond words. If there were no way for our sins to be cleansed and forgiven but that the Son of God should die for them, then our sins must be sinful indeed. Secondly, I learn that God’s love is great beyond all understanding. He could have abandoned us to our just fate and left us to perish in our sins. But he didn’t. He loved us, and he pursued us even to the desolate agony of the cross. Thirdly, I learn that salvation is a free gift. I do not deserve it. I cannot earn it. I do not need to attempt to procure it by my own merit or effort. Jesus Christ on the cross has done everything that is necessary for us to be forgiven. He has borne our sin and curse. What, then, must we do? Nothing! Nothing but fall on our knees in penitence and faith, and stretch out an open, empty hand to receive salvation as a gift that is entirely free.
–From “Suffered Under Pontius Pilate” From the Episcopal Series (Atlanta: The Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation, 1962).
August 18, 2010 at 12:32 pm
matoke
We need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age. (Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” 50-51.)
August 20, 2010 at 6:36 am
matoke
Often, our Christianity is mean because our Christ is mean. We impoverish ourselves by our low and paltry views of him. Some speak of him today as if he were a kind of hypodermic to be carried about in our pocket, so that when we are feeling depressed we can give ourselves a fix and take a trip into fantasy. But Christ cannot be used or manipulated like that. The contemporary church seems to have little understanding of the greatness of Jesus Christ as Lord of creation and Lord of the church, before whom our place is on our faces in the dust. Nor do we seem to see his victory as the New Testament portrays it, with all things under his feet, so that if we are joined to Christ, all things are under our feet as well.
–From “Understanding the Bible” (rev. edn. London: Scripture Union, 1984), p. iii.
August 20, 2010 at 8:15 am
matoke
I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.
I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.
The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . .
The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
—C.S. Lewis, “Equality,” in Present Concerns (reprint: Mariner Books, 2002), p. 17.
October 21, 2010 at 11:26 am
matoke
Just a quick post on something I’ve mentioned before, but worth a revisit. The best flight is one that has a planned destination, and once arriving there, it lands. The same is true with preaching. How easily we can end up planning the landing mid-flight, as we preach! How tempting it is to pull out during descent to circle around one more time and add in a couple of elements we thought of saying, then forgot. How uncomfortable to be a passenger on that kind of flight, or in that kind of sermon!
Know where the message is going. Plan the landing ahead of time. Perhaps have a final sentence that really nails the message. Get there. Say it. Stop.
I have often been impressed at how Haddon Robinson seems to land his messages with a great sentence and a definite period, rather than waffling and fizzling to a vague finish. I know I need to keep working on that, so I thought I’d share it here in case you do too!
Peter Mead
December 30, 2010 at 12:08 pm
andy
Freedom to disagree with the Bible is an illusory freedom; in reality it is bondage to falsehood. Langham
December 30, 2010 at 12:09 pm
andy
It seems that there is almost no pastime the devil enjoys more than tipping Christians off balance. Although I claim neither close acquaintance with his person nor inside information into his strategy, I guess that this is one of his favourite hobbies. My conviction is that we should love balance as much as the devil hates it, and seek to promote it as vigorously as he seeks to destroy it. By our ‘imbalance’ I mean that we seem to enjoy inhabiting one or other of the polar regions of truth. If we could straddle both poles simultaneously, we would exhibit a healthy biblical balance. Instead, we tend to ‘polarize’. Like Abraham and Lot we separate from one another. We push other people over to one pole, while keeping the opposite pole as our preserve. Langham
December 30, 2010 at 12:16 pm
andy
They *all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness* (2 Thes. 2:12). It is of great importance to observe that the opposite of ‘believing the truth’ is ‘delighting in wickedness’. This is because the truth has moral implications and makes moral demands. Evil, not error, is the root problem. The whole process is grimly logical. First, they delight in wickedness, or ‘make sinfulness their deliberate choice’ (NEB). Secondly, they refuse to believe and love the truth (because it is impossible to love evil and truth simultaneously). Thirdly, Satan gets in and deceives them. Fourthly, God himself ‘sends’ them a strong delusion, giving them over to the lie they have chosen. Fifthly, they are condemned and perish. This is extremely solemn teaching. It tells us that the downward slippery path begins with a love for evil, and then leads successively to a rejection of truth, the deception of the devil, a judicial hardening by God, and final condemnation. The only way to be protected from being deceived is to love goodness and truth.
Langham
December 13, 2011 at 8:57 am
Murungi Igweta
Hi Andy!
I’ve a thought from Oswald Chambers about intercession that might interest you:
What to pray for
Men ought always to pray, and not to faint – Luke 18:1
You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption; you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings which will only increase their submissive content to being out of touch with God.
In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance. Intercession means filling up “that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ,” and that is why there are so few intercessors.
Intercession is put on the line of – “Put yourself in his place.” Never! Try to put yourself in God’s place. As a worker, be careful to keep pace with the communications of reality from God or you will be crushed. If you know too much, more than God has engineered for you to know, you cannot pray, the condition of the people is so crushing that you cannot get through to reality.
Our work lies in coming into definite contact with God about everything, and we shirk it by becoming active workers. We do the things that can be tabulated but we will not intercede. Intercession is the one thing that has no snares, because it keeps our relationship with God completely open. The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul is patched up, a soul must get through into contact with the life of God. Think of the number of souls God has brought about our path and we have dropped them!
When we pray on the ground of Redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.