The Wanderer

Justin Taylor quotes Frank Beckwith to show that there is a difference between merely seeking to reduce abortions and seeking the abolition of abortion.

Beckwith says:

Reducing the number of these discretionary acts of killing simply by trying to pacify and/or accommodate the needs of those who want to procure or encourage abortions only reinforces the idea that the unborn are subhuman creatures whose value depends exclusively on someone else’s wanting them or deciding that they are worthy of being permitted to live.

He illustrates as follows:

Imagine if someone told you in 19th century America that he was not interested in giving slaves full citizenship, but merely reducing the number of people brought to this country to be slaves. But suppose another person told you that he too wanted to reduce the number of slaves, but proposed to do it by granting them the full citizenship to which they are entitled as a matter of natural justice. Which of the two is really “against slavery” in a full-orbed principled sense? The first wants to reduce the number of slaves, but only while retaining a regime of law that treats an entire class of human beings as subhuman property. The second believes that the juridical infrastructure should reflect the moral truth about enslaved people, namely, that they are in fact human beings made in the image of their Maker who by being held in bondage are denied their fundamental rights.

Just as calling for the reduction of the slave population is not the same as believing that slaves are full members of the moral community and are entitled to protection by the state, calling for a reduction in the number of abortions is not the same as calling for the state to reflect in its laws and policies the true inclusiveness of the human family, that it consists of all those who share the same nature regardless of size, level of development, environment or dependency.

Let us not set our sights too low: even if our eventual Wilberforces can only move in increments, let their ultimate target be the right one.

Jay Adams reflects on turning eighty.

Without being quite sure what distant connection my brain made (and I am not that old yet), that reminds me of John Piper’s recent booklet on retirement (pdf here).

Both of these men are seeking to remind us – and especially their peers – of the kingdom work that remains to be done by senior saints.

Timmy Brister posts an excerpt from the Baptist theologian, John Leadley Dagg.  In his Manual of Church Order, Dagg’s final point was: “It is our duty to promote the spiritual unity of the universal church, by the exercise of brotherly love to all who bear the image of Christ.”

Dagg explains:

We yield everything which is not required by the word of God; but in what this word requires, we have no compromise to make.  We rejoice to see, in many who do not take our views of divine truth, bright evidence of love to Christ and his cause.  We love them for Christ’s sake; and we expect to unite with them in his praise through eternal ages.  We are one with them in spirit, though we cannot conform to their usages in any particular in which they deviate from the Bible.  The more abundantly we love them, the more carefully we strive to walk before them in strict obedience to the commands of our common Lord.  And if they sometimes misunderstand our motives, and misjudge our actions, it is our consolation that our divine Master approves; and that they also will approve, when we shall hereafter meet them in his presence.

John L. Dagg, Manual of Church Order (Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1990; originally published 1858), 303-04.

Michael Haykin provides us with a brief overview of Andrew Fuller’s oeuvre over at Crawford Gribben’s blog.

The BBC alerts us to some of the most unfortunate names in the UK.  Here are some of them, with the books I wish they had written:

• Pester Power: The Dark Side of Advertising by Bill Board
• The Attainment of Excellence by Terry Bull
• Tree Surgery for Beginners by Tim Burr
• Popular Horticulture by Rose Bush
• Dressing Down by Pearl Button
• The Open Road by Barry Cade
• Keeping Your Options Open by Justin Case
• Marriage to Another Difficult Man by Mary Christmas
• The Hidden History of Venetian Blinds by Annette Curtain
• Painful Boundaries by Barb Dwyer
• Doing the Spadework by Doug Hole
• Cruel Humour by Jo King
• Overcoming Anxiety by Priti Manek
• The Demise of the Red Squirrel by Hazel Nutt
• Masters of the Universe by Anna Prentice
• Silent Killer by Anna Sasin
• Running a Marathon by Stan Still
• Popular Fiction by Paige Turner
• A Guide to the Opera by Carrie Oakey

David Porter is giving away one free Calfskin Premium Leather ESV Study Bible.

I observe that the opportunity for winning is narrowing fast.

Some of John “Rabbi” Duncan’s best aphorisms are collected at the Scriptorium, for example:

Hyper-Calvinism is all house and no door; Arminianism is all door and no house.

HT: Tim Challies.

Al Mohler has some statistics and comment on the pornification of culture: apparently 70% of pornography is being viewed during working hours in the US.  He mentions one employee of a government-funded agency who is recorded as spending 20% of his working day viewing pornography online.

Online pornography provides the opportunity whenever the inclination is present, and substantially removes the shaming element of the public consumption of filth.

I was driving to London Heathrow early yesterday morning, and I heard a snippet of Bono and the Edge (of U2 fame, for those of you who might not be aware) being interviewed on a random radio show.  They were asked if they ever visited fan sites and read or participated in the message boards.  The gist of Bono’s reply was as follows:

Blogging has ruined my faith in democracy.

He elaborated on his answer, complaining that he had spent years of his life lobbying leaders to listen to the voice of the people, and had now heard it for himself, and wondered what was the point?  If blogging represents the voice of the people, why would anyone want to or be advised to listen to it?

I wonder how far his tongue was in his cheek.

For those of you who care to comment, you might wish to know that comment threading is now enabled for this blog.  It doesn’t run too deep (four levels of nested comments), but it does mean that – by clicking “Reply” under a particular comment – you can now respond to a particular comment, if appropriate.  You can, of course, continue to start a new thread at any time.  Many thanks.

Ray Ortlund directs us to the thoughts of Horatius Bonar, writing the preface to John Gillies’ Accounts of Revival.  There, Bonar proposes that men useful to the Holy Spirit for revival have been marked in nine ways:

1. They were in earnest about the great work on which they had entered: “They lived and laboured and preached like men on whose lips the immortality of thousands hung.”

2. They were bent on success: “As warriors, they set their hearts on victory and fought with the believing anticipation of triumph, under the guidance of such a Captain as their head.”

3. They were men of faith: “They knew that in due season they should reap, if they fainted not.”

4. They were men of labour: “Their lives are the annals of incessant, unwearied toil of body and soul; time, strength, substance, health, all they were and possessed they freely offered to the Lord, keeping back nothing, grudging nothing.”

5. They were men of patience: “Day after day they pursued what, to the eye of the world, appeared a thankless and fruitless round of toil.”

6. They were men of boldness and determination: “Timidity shuts many a door of usefulness and loses many a precious opportunity; it wins no friends, while it strengthens every enemy. Nothing is lost by boldness, nor gained by fear.”

7. They were men of prayer: “They were much alone with God, replenishing their own souls out of the living fountain, that out of them might flow to their people rivers of living water.”

8. They were men whose doctrines were of the most decided kind: “Their preaching seems to have been of the most masculine and fearless kind, falling on the audience with tremendous power. It was not vehement, it was not fierce, it was not noisy; it was far too solemn to be such; it was massive, weighty, cutting, piercing, sharper than a two-edged sword.”

9. They were men of solemn deportment and deep spirituality of soul: “No frivolity, no flippancy . . . . The world could not point to them as being but slightly dissimilar from itself.”

May God grant that I should be more this kind of man, and many more besides me.

It’s official!  Or, at least, as official as you consider something to be that merits a fairly long piece in The Daily Mail.

Apparently, social networking sites do measurable damage to the brains of children.

Professor Susan Greenfield says:

My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.

I have to admit that I read that, and it sounds a bit like a chicken-and-egg issue to me.  Are we becoming like that because we spend too much time on Facebook, or are we attracted to Facebook because that’s what we have become?

See also here and here and here.

Some stimulating observations and insights from our friend, “Mr Goodwin.”

Don’t waste too much time on this: just visit, remind yourself that some things are pleasantly ludicrous, and go about your business.  Ladies and gentlemen . . . on reflection, probably just gentlemen, I give you . . . Beardheads.

Carl Trueman is cheesed off with recommendations of the film, Milk (for which Sean Penn just won an Oscar).  Read him here and here.

Kevin DeYoung present us with a potted history of the pastor and martyr, Guido de Bres, primary author of the Belgic Confession.

Note: this post has been revised in the light of comments received (see below) and subsequent posts on David Anderson’s blog retracting the tone but not the substance of his original material.  This revision of mine is not meant to be an underhand evasion.  My personal exposure to the errors of the Federal Vision has been somewhat prolonged and profoundly distressing, and that experience perhaps betrayed me into a bluntness that was unfair.  That does not mean that much of the distinctive teaching of the Federal Vision does not need a blunt rebuttal, but it does mean that I should do so in a more irenic spirit.  I am grateful to Amanda Robbie for “calling me out” on this one, and ask forgiveness for unnecessary offence caused by the tone in which I spoke what I still believe to be the truth, although I cannot and will not retract what I consider to be the truth, however offensive that might be considered.  I retain some of David’s original material, while seeking to take into account his concerns over its tone.  If I have failed to do so to his satisfaction (was I deemed to be the aggressive voice of the blogosphere?), perhaps David will get in touch and let me know?

You might have seen the blurb for a new webzine, Ecclesia Reformanda.  I had, and I looked over, and thought with some positive feeling, “I shall have a better look at that at some point.”

That positive feeling has been somewhat allayed by what was posted by David Anderson concerning what he fears to be part of the magazine’s agenda.  David knows some of the key figures behind this magazine, and has suggested that there may be more to this magazine than meets the eye.  I quote the essence of David’s piece (with some minor excisions):

The advertising blurb for the magazine tells us that its purpose is to promote historic Reformed theology, and mentions no other distinctives – the “best of British Reformed thinking”. And yet…

• All four of the editorial board are convinced Federal Visionists, as a quick look over their blogs will show.
• The synopsis of the first issue also gives it away very quickly… Jim Jordan’s hermeneutics, the place of children in the New Covenant.
• As does the list of book reviews and book reviewers. Doug Wilson, Peter Leithart, Alastair Roberts… (And of those not so well known there is more than one FV advocate). Books on the nature of the New Covenant and the church, infant baptism…
• The editorial for issue 1 lists some things that ought to be allowed points of difference within the Reformed community. And… it’s pretty much a shopping list of the key questions raised by the Federal Vision controversy or viewpoints espoused by FV advocates. And predictably (since these are FVers) absent… infant baptism, of course, is not an allowed point of controversy, despite the majority of real-life Reformed believers in the UK being baptists!
• Do a blog search to see who’s recommending this new magazine – yup, it’s a list of FV advocates. The blurb many of them reproduce again, though, tells us that the magazine’s distinctive is to be presenting “Reformed Theology”, rather than that its distinctive is to promote the FV…

All this, and not one mention of the “Federal Vision” on the website. No mention that the editorial board are – despite the blurb about representing British Reformed theology – all from one single college: Oak Hill (Anglican), and that three of them were (as were some of the book reviewers), whilst there, taught the Federal Vision by the fourth (David Field). All we’re told is that the stated aim is promoting Reformed theology.

I note the intention to promote “the best of British reformed thinking” and I am grateful for it.  However, while I have not personally subscribed to the magazine yet, I have looked more carefully into David’s claim that the key players subscribe, in various degrees, to Federal Vision theology, and I think it holds water.  Both perusing the blogs of the key men and women and looking at some of the themes and material most prominent in the first edition, I would suggest that David’s fears have some substance.

While it is right to accept the intention of those involved to be as stated – promoting the best of British reformed scholarship – it is also fair to imagine that one’s perspective and convictions on what is the best of British reformed scholarship will profoundly influence the tone and direction of the magazine.  If, as David suggests, that perspective and those convictions carry the taint of the Federal Vision then readers and subscribers would therefore do well to engage with discernment.

I do not use the word ‘taint’ lightly.  I have had personal and fairly prolonged contact with advocates of Federal Vision theology.  I have read some of the material being disseminated by its proponents, engaged in lengthy conversations (some of them written) about some of the distinctives of the Federal Vision, seen others engage with some of the same things, and watched with a profound sadness the fearful trajectory of some avowed Federal Visionists (which has caused deep personal grief to friends close at hand).  It is my conviction that many of the particular distinctives of the Federal Vision are unscriptural and strike at the very essence of true Biblical Christianity with regard to such matters as the nature of justification; the nature of the covenant; the nature of baptism (its objects and effects); the nature of the church; and, the principle and effects of Christian obedience, to name a few of the key issues that spring to mind.

Please be clear: I am not attributing all of this to the editors of Ecclesia Reformanda.  Indeed, I should be happy – not necessarily to enter into a prolonged debate with advocates of the Federal Vision on this blog, but – if any of the key players should like to disavow the distinctive and dangerous perspectives of the Federal Vision in some public forum.  That would set my mind at rest to some degree.

I still intend to have a better look at this magazine at some point.  Nevertheless, if it is the case (as David fears) that Ecclesia Reformanda has as part of its unstated agenda – and why should anyone state it if they simply believe it is the best of British reformed thinking? – the promotion of the Federal Vision theology in the UK, then we must read with care, watch with wariness, and observe with discernment.  I hope and expect that there will be many tonics for the soul, but it would be extremely dangerous should there prove to be an occasional bottle of poison among the tonic.

Forest Green D.C.M.

O Lord, our King, our grateful praise
Our tongues would gladly tell:
The mighty name, the glorious works
Of our Immanuel.
O Holy Spirit, help us
To make a joyful sound:
In every part of worship
May life and joy abound.

Reveal divinest glories
To our benighted minds;
Inspire great love; break the cold grip
That often our heart binds.
Let nothing in us hinder
Your work within each heart.
Lord, make us pure and holy
And Christlikeness impart.

We bend our knee, O Saviour,
And seek your glorious face.
Help us, O Holy Spirit:
Those holy beauties trace.
We lift our hearts and voices
To praise your glorious grace;
Draw near to us, be good to us,
And fill this needy place.

©JRW

See all hymns and psalms.

I find myself among august company over at The Exiled Preacher: Guy Davies has added me to the roll of those who blog in the name of the Lord: series five, interview seven.  Should you be interested, you can read Guy’s penetrating questions and my opaque answers here.

(By the way, I am not changing the picture even if Guy sticks in more interviewees.)

Read more interviews in the Series 4 box set.

The last couple of weeks have been something of a blur.  I think I last posted an update the Monday before I went to Holland.  The main task that week, in addition to the midweek prayer meeting, was finishing the preparation of the sermons, and also preparing some questions and pointers to answers for the discussion sessions at the conference.

I flew out to Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, on Thursday evening.  I was met at the airport by Arjen van Gent, a theology student.  We travelled an hour or so by train to his home, and as I quizzed him I began to learn a little more about the conference and its circumstances, aims, and attendees.  Arriving at his parents’ home, I scoffed a friendly pizza and headed pretty early to bed where I had a good night’s sleep.  I woke, and made full use of the space-age shower in the bathroom (although a slightly exuberant twist of one particular knob did cause freezing water to power into my shanks just as I thought I had finished).  I had a light breakfast while waiting for Arjen to emerge, and then I did a little reading and prepared to leave for the conference.  Marcel Vroegop, with whom I had been in primary contact, dropped in just to confirm with his own eyes that the speaker was indeed on Dutch soil, and it was good to meet him.  We had a lunch time feast of pancakes, and then Arjen and I set out into the snow and wind for a stroll through a forested area – almost as bracing as freezing water on the shanks!  We set off shortly afterward for the conference – Arjen and his father and myself, picking up a couple called Marco and Geretta in the same town before heading into the traffic for the 90 minute or so journey to the conference centre.

We arrived to find most of the committee ensconced and preparing the ground.  An evening meal of frankfurters and tomato soup was quickly prepared, and we made the place ready for the first service.

Those who came were, for the most part, hungry for the Word of God.  Even if they were not, food was offered in abundance.  The committee had asked for six sermons, in addition to which we visited a local church in nearby Rijssen on the Lord’s day morning.  Each sermon had 80 minutes allotted to it (albeit in translation), followed by a fifteen minute break, and then a discussion period in mentor-groups (which also served as teams for catering) which lasted 30 to 60 minutes (depending on the time available).  I was often participating in those discussions, and often informal discussion would continue afterward.  In the course of the weekend, I also had many opportunities for personal interaction with those attending, and was delighted with the open hearts and frank attitudes of many who were present.  A brother named Oskar Loohuis (I hope I have that spelling right) translated the first four sermons, and Arjen’s father, Pieter, translated the last two.  My assigned topics, and the texts and sermons from which I preached, were as follows:

• How does Christ become my Redeemer? (Isaiah 45:22 > Looking unto Jesus)
• Union with Christ (2Cor 5.17 > A new creation)
• The Biblical signs of a true Christian (1Jn > What is a true Christian?)
• Biblical manhood and womanhood (Gen 1.27 > Biblical manhood and womanhood)
• Living the Christian life (Phil 2.12-13 > Working in and working out)
• A Christ-glorifying life (2Tim 4.6-8 > The Saviour and his servant)

As you can see, these were foundational truths covering something of the range of Christian experience.  I think that God drew near to bless us, especially during two or three of those sermons.

That said, I learned yet more about the dark art of preaching via a translator.  The translators were excellent, but I did not always make their job easy.  The more topical sermons (the third and fourth) had much more technical and precise language in more complex headings as I tried to draw several different texts together.  These did not always translate easily and well.  I also had a plan for a way of referencing 1 John in the third sermon that worked better in theory than in practice.  Of course, over such an intense few days, weariness also sets in, not least on the part of the congregation.

There were many times when I was facing afresh the recognition that the Spirit of God alone can bring the truth to bear on men’s hearts.  I am also conscious that my sense of profit is not the same as something profitable accomplished.

On Monday we cleaned out the building in which we had stayed and were back in Waganingen by about midday.  Once the available members of the committee had convened, we enjoyed an easy lunch together and discussed various issues and relaxed and laughed.  Then, I was graciously escorted back to the airport and headed home.  The fellowship was very sweet, and I very much enjoyed my time with these dear brothers and sisters, being encouraged and instructed by the vigorous and sacrificial faith that particular friends are showing, and by the earnest and gracious character that many demonstrated over the course of the whole weekend.

I returned home weary, and slept well and long for the next two nights.  During the days, as well as taking a Sabbath for myself, I was catching up at home, and then began producing some follow-up material to the conference for which I was asked (an ongoing process).  I also had some writing projects that I needed to pursue, and managed to do a little reading.  On Thursday afternoon, it being a half-term break here, I went out to the park during the afternoon, and was delighted to find a few lads playing football, two of home remembered me from before.  I played football in the pouring rain for about half-an-hour, and then spoke to them a little about Christ and his church.  Although they were resistant, a couple of them did take CDs of sermons, and I think that there might have been some genuine interest.

On Friday afternoon, a friend came by to spend an hour or so for us to read some more of John Angell James together, a little bit of which is here.  A few minutes after he left, I had a phone appointment for the rest of the afternoon.  In the evening, I relaxed and read.  Saturday morning was sermon preparation, and in the afternoon I went back out to Maidenbower to see who was around.  This time, the older young people were missing (Jobs? Season tickets to various football clubs?  Football matches?) but there were a lot of young families around and one or two watching football matches being played.  Not the easiest environment in which to do gospel work more explicitly, but a good one in which to watch the world and learn how men are.

On the Lord’s day, our adult Sunday School class continued to consider our children’s intellectual development.  As an off-shoot, we are taking an opportunity to consider the formal education of our children, and – having established some fundamental principles and goals – we are looking at various approaches to formal education.  Yesterday we assessed the pros and cons of state education (including state schools with a Christian ethos).  We hope to go on to look at home education and other options.

In the morning worship I preached on The Liberator from John 8.36: “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”  We began by identifying the slavery men know: even – sometimes especially – those who boast in their freedom, are moral slaves to sin: ambition, anger, lust, greed, revenge, appetite, opinion, religion, superstition and scepticism.  This is the illusory freedom of the condemned prisoner dreaming of open spaces.

From there, we considered the freedom Christ gives: “if the Son makes you free.”  That ‘if’ is the key in the lock, the gleam of light in darkness that promises the prospect of deliverance.  It points to the author of freedom, the Son, who acts righteously, justly, freely, instantly and eternally in making free.  In might and with mercy, with authority and compassion, he can and does set the prisoners free.

It is a glorious freedom, a freedom that alone is worthy of the name.  We are set free from the guilt, punishment, power and consequences of sin.  We are set free to obey God, not needing to fear either men or outcomes in our pursuit of glorifying the God of our salvation.

I called upon some to feel their chains, that they might not boast in an illusion when offered freedom indeed.  Christ alone can liberate the captives.

I called upon others to feel their freedoms, to enjoy and employ the freedom bestowed by Jesus, so that we glorify God as those who are free indeed.

We had a friend from the church over for lunch, and I also got a little reading done.  The evening service was good, not least because my eldest son sat all the way through (with a little encouragement) for the first time.

Today, I will be at the John Owen Centre, participating in the Theology Study Group.  We are considering Tim Keller’s The Reason for God (reviewed here).  The discussion is usually stimulating, and the fellowship enjoyable.  The rest of the week is stacked to the gills with stuff.

Yesterday a friend was discussing earnestness with me, along the lines of this post.  We spoke of those things of which we must be aware and convinced if we are to be productive men of principle.  I mentioned John Wesley’s habit of assessing his use of each five minute period as to whether or not it was fruitful.  Taking a line through this, he pointed out the following:

Assume that you sleep for about eight hours each night.  That gives you a waking day of about 16 hours.  16 hours is 960 minutes, so your waking day is approximately 1000 minutes long.  Every ten minute period is 1% of your waking day.  Every time ten minutes passes on your clock, 1% of your day passes.  (On further reflection, assume an eight hour work day and you simply double the percentages in considering your deliberately productive hours.)

Now, some calculations and questions which cut both ways:

• One hour pointlessly browsing the internet is 6% of your waking day, 12% of your working day (one tenth of your productive hours).
• A daily commute of one hour each way is 12% of your waking day.
• Thirty chatty minutes on the phone is 3% of your waking day, 6% of your working day.
• A lazily extended lunch hour (90 minutes?) is 9% of your waking day, 18% (almost one fifth) of your working day).
• Two hours of television in the evening would be 12% of your waking day.
• An extra ten minutes in bed is 1% of your waking day. An extra hour is 6%.
• One rugby or football match is 10% of your waking day.
• One feature film could be 10-15% of your waking day.
• One hour in church on Sunday is only 6% of your waking day given to God – not even a tithe of your time on the day that belongs to him and which he has given you to enjoy him! Presume two ninety-minute services and you still only get to 18% of your waking day dedicated to God.
• That agonisingly long sermon that lasts a whole forty-five minutes? That’s barely 5% of your waking day learning about God.
• If you only pray for five minutes in the morning, you expect to get through 99.5% of your waking day without speaking to God.
• If you read your Bible for ten minutes, you spend only 1% of your waking day reading the Word of God.
• What percentage of your last waking day did you spend profitably and what percentage pointlessly?
• Is your family’s spiritual health worth 2 or 3% of your waking day around the Word of God?
• Is your own spiritual health worth 2 or 3% of your waking day in considering God’s truth?

I could go on.  Now, there are days of rest and times of recreation and relaxation, and there is no need for false guilt.  You must eat and wash and sleep and use the bathroom and pause now and then.  But how many wasted moments have there been in my last few days?  How many in yours?

I have now spent 2% of my day working on this post.  Is it time well spent?  For me?  For you?

Incidentally, my friend also pointed out that 80% of people don’t understand percentages (this is only partly a joke, apparently).  Even so, those ten minute periods tick away very quickly.  How productive are your percentages?  Will the minutes you have spent reading this contribute to your productive use of time today?

The clock is ticking . . .

Work while it is day.

It is easy to snipe across established boundaries.

Some of us look at men whom we consider too pragmatic, and assure ourselves that if they had any principle they would not do what they do, and they would of course be less successful.  From the other side we look at men whom we consider frigidly principled, sterile and fruitless but self-assured and unshakeable in their conviction that their very ineffectiveness is a mark of their faithfulness.  Perhaps, for many genuinely Reformed Christians, our accusations of mere pragmatism (even where legitimate in degree) mask the fact that our principles are not practically employed as they ought to be.

John Angell James addresses men who ought to be in earnest for the salvation of souls in the following excerpt from his excellent book, An Earnest Ministry: The Want of the Times.  He calls us neither to abandon true principle nor to embrace mere pragmatism, but to cultivate a holy pragmatism in accordance with Scriptural principle, and so to seek to accomplish the ends God has given us by the invention and use of means that accord with Scripture.  It is not pleasant reading, but it is good medicine.

But this touches a THIRD thing implied in genuine earnestness, and that is the studious invention and diligent use of all appropriate means to accomplish the selected object. An earnest man is the last to be satisfied with mere formality, routine, and prescription.  He will often survey his object, his means, and his instruments: will look back upon the past to review his course, to examine his failure and success, with the causes of each; to learn what to do, and what to avoid for the future.  His enquiry will often be, What next?  What more?  What better?  And as the result of all this, new experiments will be tried, new plans will be laid, and new courses will be pursued.  With an inextinguishable ardour, and with a resolute fixedness of purpose, he exclaims, “I must succeed-How?”

And shall we ministers possess nothing of this earnestness, if we are seeking the salvation of souls?  Shall dull uniformity, stiff formality, wearisome repetitions, and rigid routine, satisfy us? Shall we never institute the inquiry, “Why have I not succeeded better in my ministry?  How is it that my congregation is not larger, and my church more rapidly increasing?  In what way can I account for it that the truth as it is in Jesus, which I believe I preach, is not more influential, and the doctrine of the cross is not, as it was intended to be, the power of God unto the salvation of souls?  Why do I not more frequently hear addressed to me, by those who are constantly under my ministry, the anxious inquiry, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’  I am not wanting, as far as I know, in the regular discharge of my ordinary duties, and yet I gather little fruit of my labours, and have to utter continually the prophet’s complaint, ‘Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?’”  Do we indeed indulge in such complaints!  Have we earnestness enough to pour forth such lamentations?  Or is it of little consequence to us, provided we get our stipend, keep up the congregation to its usual size, and maintain the tranquillity of the church, whether the ends of the ministry are accomplished or not?  Are we often seen by God’s omniscient eye pacing our study in deep thoughtfulness, solemn meditation, and rigorous self-inquisition; and after an impartial survey of our doings, and a sorrowful lamentation that we are doing no more, questioning ourselves thus?  “Is there no new method to be tried, no new scheme to be devised, to increase the efficiency of my ministerial and pastoral labours?  Is there nothing I can improve, correct, or add?  Is there any thing particularly wanting in the matter, manner, or method of my preaching, or in my course of pastoral attentions?”  Surely it might be supposed that such inquiries would be often instituted into the results of so momentous a ministry as ours; that seasons would be not unfrequently set apart, especially at the close or beginning of every year, for such a purpose.  The result could not fail to be beneficial.

Here it may be proper for us to look out of our own profession, and ask if the earnest tradesman, soldier, lawyer, philosopher, and mechanician, are satisfied to go on as they have done, though with ever so little success?  Do we not see in all other departments of human action, where the mind is really intent on some great object, and where success has not been obtained in proportion to the labour bestowed, a dissatisfaction with past modes of action, and a determination to try new ones?  And should we who watch for souls, and labour for immortality, be indifferent to success, and to the plans by which it might be secured?  In calling for new methods, we want no new doctrines; no new principles ; no startling eccentricities; no wild irregularities; no vagaries of enthusiasm, nor phrensies of the passions; no, nothing but what the most sober judgment and the soundest reason would approve; but we do want a more inventive, as well as a more fervid zeal in seeking the great end of our ministry.  Respectable but dull uniformity, and not enthusiasm, is the side on which our danger lies.  I know very well the contortions of an epileptic zeal are to be avoided, but so also is the numbness of a paralytic one; and after all, the former is less dangerous to life, and is more easily and frequently cured, than the latter. We may, as regards our preaching for instance, examine whether we have not dwelt too little on the alarming, or on the attractive themes of revelation? – whether we have not clothed our discourses too much with the terrors of the Lord? and if so, we may wisely determine to try the more winning forms of love and mercy: or whether we have not rendered the gospel powerless by a perpetual repetition of it in common-place phraseology? whether we have not been too argumentative? and resolve to be more imaginative, practical, and hortatory: whether we have not addressed ourselves too exclusively to believers? and determine to commence a style of more frequent and pungent address to the unconverted: whether we have not been too vague and general in our descriptions of sin? and become more specific and discriminating: whether we have not been too neglectful of the young? and begin a regular course of sermons to them: whether we have not had too much sameness of topic? and adopt courses of sermons on given subjects: whether we have not been too elaborate and abstract in the composition of our discourses? and come down to greater simplicity: whether we have not been too careless? and bestow more pains: whether we have not been too doctrinal? and in future, make all truth bear, as it was intended to do, upon the heart, conscience, and life.

Nor must the inquiry stop here.  There ought to be the same process of rigid scrutiny instituted as to the labours of the pastorate.  We must review the proceedings of this momentous department, for here also is most ample scope for invention as to new plans of action.  Perhaps upon inquiry we shall find out that we have neglected various channels through which our influence might, have been poured over the flock committed to our care, and shall discover many ways in which we can improve upon our former plans, in the way of meeting the inquirers after salvation, giving our aid to Sunday schools, setting up Bible classes, or visiting the flock.  What is needed is an anxious wish to be wanting in nothing that can conduce to our usefulness, a diligent endeavour to make up every deficiency, and a mind ever inquisitive after new means and methods of doing good.  Could we all but adopt the plan of setting apart a day at the close of every year for solemn examination into our ministerial and pastoral doings, with the view of ascertaining our defects and neglects, to see in what way we could improve, to humble ourselves before God for the past, and to lay down new rules for the future, we should all be more abundantly useful than we are. And does not earnestness require all this?  Can we pretend to be in earnest if we neglect these things?  The idea of a minister’s going on from year to year with either little success, or none at all, and yet never pausing to inquire how this comes to pass, or what can be done to increase his efficiency, is so utterly repugnant to all proper notions of devotedness, that we are obliged to conclude, the views such a man entertains of the design and end of his office are radically and essentially defective.[1]

Baroness Warsi calls on politicians to stop messing about and face the issue:

“There has to be a culture change and that has to brought about by policy makers taking a very clear stance on this issue, saying that in this country, one married man is allowed to marry one woman.”

I wonder how long it will be before the BBC rewrites that, or a clarification is issued, making plain that actually it is only polygamy we are dealing with, and that this archaic definition of marriage clearly was not taking into account the perfectly acceptable practice of two men or two women entering into a civil union.  Ahem.

It is half-term this week.  My wife reminded me that some of the lads from Maidenbower might be out and about.  Yesterday I had another opportunity to speak with some of them.  I went over to the park and played football for about half-an-hour in the pouring rain.  We were dripping wet, and they were about to head home.  I asked when I would see them at church, and gave them some encouragements and reasons to come.   I told them that the truth about Jesus was the most important thing that sinners like us can ever know about, and they would probably not hear that truth from anyone else, but that God in his mercy had sent preachers like me to explain to them why they need a Saviour.

They shut down: clearly I was getting “serious.”  I asked them why they were so negative.  They trotted out the prepared response, the “lines to take” that society provides for them.  Among the answers – “I am an agnostic,” “I am an atheist” – was one particularly noteworthy riposte: “I believe in evolution.”

Many evolutionists can get quite narked when you start setting your ‘worldview’ against theirs as if they were men and women of faith.  You are superstitious, they are scientific.  You are subjective, they are objective.  You are emotional, they are intellectual.  You are muddled, they are clear.  You have to do with faith, they have to do with reason.

Yet you speak to ordinary folks, and it becomes clear that to them, evolution is very much a defence.  It is an alternative and antagonistic belief system, a structure of presuppositions and notions that demands faith, and which can be opposed to the Christian faith.

Evolution, certainly as commonly understood (and, I would argue, on every level), is a matter of faith.  As such, it is groundless: inconsistent, incoherent, incredible, and inconclusive.  It claims to offer progress, and yet leaves men trapped by their own sin and in their own misery.

“I believe in evolution.”

How tragic.  Thank God that there is an alternative to the idols.

From A Good Start by C. H. Spurgeon, Chapter 1 (”A Young Man in Christ”).

Young men, to you I would honestly say that I should be ashamed to speak of a religion that would make you soft, cowardly, effeminate, spiritless, so that you would be mere naturals in business, having no souls of your own, the prey of every designing knave.  Young men, I have tried the faith of Jesus Christ, and I have found it to give me “pluck” – that is an old Saxon word, but it is exactly what I mean.  It puts soul into a man, courage, firmness, resolution, courage.  If he is in the habit of talking with his own conscience, and his Bible, and his God, he can look the whole universe in the face – ay, and a universe of devils, too – and never feel the slightest fear.  Why should he?  Is not the Eternal on the Christian’s man side?  Is not the risen and reigning Christ on his side?  Is not the blessed Spirit his friend?  Yes, the angels of God, and providence, and time, and eternity, and all the forces that exist, are his allies, save only those of death and hell, and these his Lord has conquered and trampled under foot.  I would that every young man were enlisted in the army of Christ right early, for none make such good soldiers as those who begin while yet they are young.

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