markchanski

Richard Baxter on the need for Pastors to watch over their own hearts and lives first:

Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonor him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet despise it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and wilfully break them?

If sin be evil, why do you live in it if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? if it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men, with them, and put them into such frights without a cause?  Do you ‘know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death,” and yet will you do them?

‘Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery,’ or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself ‘Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God ‘ What! shall the same tongue speak evil that speakest against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbor, that cry down these and the like things in others?

Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves: ‘For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.’ ‘To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.’ O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.

— The Reformed Pastor, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979, pp 67-68

I sat speaking after a Sunday morning service to an 18 year old young man who said:

“But I just don’t know if I’m a Christian or not.  I want to be, but I just have so many doubts.  Yes, I know that I’m a sinner who deserves Hell.  I know that I could never save myself by being good or doing good.  And I know that the only way of salvation is to repent and believe in Jesus who died on the cross for sinners.  But I just don’t feel like I’m born again.  I don’t read the bible and pray as often as I should, and I often wonder how in the world I could ever be a Christian with a track record like that.  I just feel like giving up.”

A visit to the Interpreter’s House in Pilgrim’s Progress would do him well.  There he would meet a Violent Man who took the kingdom by force.

Then the Interpreter took Christian, and led him up towards the door of the palace; and behold, at the door stood a great company of men, as desirous to go in, but they dared not to do it.  There also sat a man at a little distance from the door, at a table-side, with a book and his inkhorn pen before him, to take the names of them who had intentions to enter therein; he saw also that in the doorway stood many men in armor to block it, being resolved to do to the men that would enter, what hurt and mischief they could.

Now Christian was somewhat amazed to see that they were prepared to inflict whatever pain or injury they could upon the people who would enter through the door.  At last when every man started to go back for fear of the armed men, Christian saw a strong man of very firm resolution come up to the man that sat there to write with the pen, saying, “Write down my name, sir;” the which when he had done, he saw the man draw his sword, and put a helmet on his head, and rush towards the door upon the armed men, who laid into him with deadly force; but the man, not at all discouraged, began cutting and hacking most fiercely.  

So after he had received and given many wounds to those that attempted to keep him out; he cut his way through them all, and pressed forward into the palace; at which there was a pleasant voice heard from those that were within, even of those that walked upon the top of the palace, saying,

  “Come in, come in,
   Eternal glory thou shalt win.”

So he went in, and was clothed with such garments as they wore.

Then Christian smiled, and said, I think verily I know the meaning of this.

Matthew 11:12: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.”

Let’s train up our children with tender affection and patience.

” But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children” (1 Thess. 2:7).

USDA Cattle are reluctantly driven by the cracking of a whip, or the shooting of a pistol.  Championship dogs, on the other hand, are happily drawn by a loose leash.  The latter is preferable.  Let’s seek to lead our children by cords of love, when possible.  So let there be a silver thread of kindness in all we do, by displaying gentleness, longsuffering, forbearance, patience, and sympathy.

When I was a young father, I would stop at the gas station.  This was prior to the pay-at-the-pump days.  My children would wait in the car while I went in to pay.  I saw the Tootsie Rolls or Jolly Rancher Kisses on the counter.  But I never put down the pennies because I wanted to teach my kids that we don’t impulse buy, and we don’t waste money on sweets!  Looking back, I think I would have occasionally brightened their eyes with a little honey.

When our boys bumped their heads, I’d say, “You’re okay!  Be tough!”  Looking back, I think I’d more often grab their throbbing heads and say something like, “O man, I bet that hurts.  I remember when I was little and get bonked, and felt like I just wanted to go home and be with my mom.  But I know you’re the man, and can keep going.”

We adults know how much of a difference a goodwill gesture makes.  When the employer hands out a bonus Thanksgiving turkey, or gives a day off on a Monday, July 3, he woos and wins hearts.

J. C. Ryle writes: “Few are to be found, even among grown-up people who are not more easy to draw than to drive.  There is  that in all our minds which rises in arms against compulsion; we set up our backs and stiffen our necks at the very idea of a forced obedience.  We are like young horses in the hand of a breaker: handle them kindly, and make much of them, and by and by you may guide them with a thread; use them roughly and violently, and it will be many a month before you get the mastery of them at all.” (The Duties of Parents, p4)

When a little daughter climbs out of the bathtub with wet and snarled long hair, it’s the wise mother who takes the time to gently brush it straight while talking tenderly, instead of more time efficiently pulling hard with hair ripping and neck jerking tugs.  Such love, “covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

Our three acre yard is served well by a reliable old John Deere mower.  But when I see one of our sons roughly grinding the transmission gears with little concern for the tractor’s feelings, I shout, “Hey, HEy, HEY!  Take it easy on him!”  So too, we’re wise to avoid handling are children roughly and gruffly with cutting and biting words.  “Put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth . . .  Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:8, 12).

Ryle again: “We must handle our children delicately, like frail machines, lest by rough fingering we do more harm than good. . .  A minister may speak the truth as it is in Jesus, clearly, forcibly, unanswerably; but if he does not speak it in love, few souls will be won.  Just so you must set before your children their duty, — command, threaten, punish, reason, — but if affection be lacking in your treatment, your labor will be all in vain.” (The Duties of Parents, p5)

Is it biblically acceptable for a mother to hold a full time job outside of the home?

It can be. It is like the alcohol question, it can be.

In fact I would say, outside of the home is a complex statement. Only after the industrial revolution was home and work separated, by and large. Everywhere there is an agrarian kind of culture, home and work are together. If all the kids are weaving the baskets that you sell to make a living, are you home? If the garden around the house is what supports the family and the husband is out there building a barn, and you’re doing this, are you home?

All that is to say the very question is ambiguous, and it is today. My niece has a full time job, and her office is in her home. She works for a company three states away.

Having said it can be, I want to discourage it because mothering and homemaking are huge and glorious jobs. What children need at age one, five, six, fourteen, eighteen is simply amazing, and so is what those needs call forth from a woman’s creativity and heart and mind, personally for each one of these little ones that are coming along.

And, just being able to focus on the home where ministry can happen—not being enslaved by anybody’s clock—you can say, “I want to work my tail off for king Jesus, but I don’t want anybody to pay me for it. I’m going to do it right here in this neighborhood with my husband’s connections and my connections. We’re going to lavish grace on people’s lives.”

So, I’m calling for ministry full-time when I say “don’t work full-time if you have a family.” Turn your family into ministry. Turn your family into a global dream for what this family might become, or what this man might be, or what we might be together as we are home.

Those are the kind of dreams I want to offer the younger women that are coming along so that they don’t think, “If I don’t get a career and make lots of money and be equal with men in pay and time and everything, I’ve somehow sold out to something small or something that doesn’t require intellectual capabilities.”

It is a great and glorious calling to be a mother and a homemaker and a wife and a neighborhood make-it-happen kind of person and a church minister. Who knows what God might be pleased to do.

Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Mourning for sin is a fruit of authentic Christianity in the heart — an evidence of the new birth, of spiritual life.

Thomas Watson:

“To indulge sin is to commit it with delight.  The ungodly ‘delight in wickedness’ (2 Thess. 2:12).  In this sense, a godly man does not indulge sin. Though sin is in him—he is troubled at it and would gladly get rid of it.

There is as much difference between sin in the wicked, and sin in the godly—as between poison being in a serpent, and poison being in a man.  Poison in a serpent is in its natural place and is delightful—but poison in a man’s body is harmful and he uses antidotes to expel it. So sin in a wicked man is delightful, being in its natural place—but sin in a child of God is burdensome and he uses all means to expel it.”

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Turning 65

With work to be done, this is no time for R&R | John Piper

Love Wins reality check: “Hitler is in heaven!”

“God forgave Hitler?” He did? And someone knows this for sure? And felt the need for the rest of us to know?”

http://youtu.be/pDLCN8GwBHE