Quotes for the week of 4/15/18

Words To Live By

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.
― John R.W. Stott (posted 4/15/18)

What a man is alone and on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.
― Robert Murray M'Cheyne (posted 4/14/18)​

The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
― Oswald Chambers (posted 4/13/18)

You can shut Jesus up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
― C.S. Lewis (posted 4/12/18)

You don't realize God is all you need until God is all you have.
― Tim Keller (Posted 4/11/18)​

How unspeakably wonderful to know that all our concerns are held in the hands that bled for us.
― John Newton (posted 4/10/18)

The point of irresistible grace is not that we can’t resist. We can, and we do. The point is that when God chooses, he overcomes our resistance and restores a submissive spirit. He creates. He says, “Let there be light!” He heals. He leads. He restores. He comforts.

― John Piper (posted 4/9/18)

The Lord Our Righteousness

Jehovah Tsidkenu (Sid kay new)
"The Lord Our Righteousness"

The watchword of the Reformers—

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,

I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;

Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,

Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,

Isaiah's wild measure and John's simple page;

But e'en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree

Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,

I wept when the waters went over His soul;

Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree

Jehovah Tsidkenu—'twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,

Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;

No refuge, no safety in self could I see—

Jehovah Tsidkenu my Savior must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;

My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came

To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—

Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,

Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne'er can be lost;

In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field—

My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,

This "watchword" shall rally my faltering breath;

For while from life's fever my God sets me free,

Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be.

-- Robert Murray M'Cheyne (from DG 2011 Pastor's Conf)

Did You Preach It With Tears?

"My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law." Ps 119:136

Periodically, I think that it is easy to gravitate to two extremes when reading, praying and processing God's Word. One extreme would be the rigid, dry, purely academic end. Jn 5:39-40 typifies this for me "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." At the other extreme would be pure emotionalism. No rigor, no mental discipline, just "gut". 2 Tim 4:3 sums this up nicely: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions."

But knowing or seeing a problem is only half the battle. Yes these extremes are real. Yes they do occur in our churches and I would dare say in ourselves. What do we do with this? How do we proceed?

This may not answer the questions above, but, for me at least, it frames the question. This is a quote about Robert Murray M'Cheyne from a book by Sinclair Ferguson (thanks Justin Taylor).

"When Robert M’Cheyne met his dearest friend Andrew Bonar one Monday and inquired what Bonar had preached on the previous day, only to receive the answer “Hell,” he asked: “Did you preach it with tears?” "

Perhaps the balance is to know God's Word so well, that we begin to see things as God sees them. Then we will not get lost in the academia or the emotionalism, but rather get caught up in the holiness. Then the sin in our own lives and in the lives around us won't be simply broken rules, but heartbreaking actions. And the way back, whether for us or for others will not be some antiseptic application of truth, but rather a passionate application of grace.

In the end, as we preach the gospel to ourselves and to those the Spirit brings into our lives, I pray we "preach it with tears."

To God Alone be the Glory

Quote

There is something inexpressibly pleasing to a justified mind 
   to know that God has all the honor in our salvation, and we have none; 
   to know that God's honor is not violated, but on the contrary, shines more illustrious; 
   to know that God's law is not injured, but magnified and made honorable, 
   to know that we are safe, and God has all the glory.

M'Cheyne, Robert Murray

Re: The Bible

"Read and read again, and do not despair of help to understand the will and mind of God though you think they are fast locked up from you. Neither trouble your heads though you have not commentaries and exposition. Pray and read, read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men." -- John Bunyan

"Depend upon it, it is God's Word, not our comment upon it, that saves men's souls" -- Robert Murray M'Cheney