Persons Prepared and Placed

"A violent physician for a violent age" - That's what one of Martin Luther's closest friends and co-laborers called him. His name was Philip Melancthon. I thank God for rough men, made so by God, and strategically located in time and space to serve His purposes. These are perhaps the most rare of creatures, whose default setting is truth, not peace or self-preservation.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them. For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you; yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.  Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.”  Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely.  Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’” - Ezekiel 3:4-11

To the Christian Rich - Befriend the Needy

"The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy" - Proverbs 14:20-21.

Another Reason Why the Christian Life is So Hard

Because, "Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines. 

And He scourges every son whom He receives."

Proverbs 3:11-12, cited in Hebrews 12:6

Sunday Post for Shepherds - Sing the Psalms with Your People

Every church, when she gathers on the Lord's Day, should be singing the Psalms, because the Apostle Paul says so (Ep 5:19; Col 3:16), and because it was the hymnbook of Jesus, and because the Psalms are the word of God sung and teach us much about Him, and because they express real Christian life under the sun, and because they call us to reality, and shape our expectations as they work against our modern day joy joy-all victory-yeah rah- pure happiness false theology in this broken world where the devil is the prince of the power of the air and almost nothing functions as it should. Hardship is real. Depression is real. Pain is real. Loss is real. Suffering is real. Perplexity is real. Death is real. Failure is real. Agony is real. And their reality in the believer is often not the result of personal sin. And all of these have their rightful place in the Christian experience. God, by the Psalms, teaches us to relate rightly to Him in our genuine struggles and losses. He shows us how to worship Him in our pain. And as Carl Trueman so rightly puts it, He shows us what miserable Christians can sing.

The Dead Do Live

"The gospel is not a gospel about bad people becoming better. The gospel is about dead people coming to life."  

Jason Meyer, preaching Ezekiel 37, to Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. 

Hear the entire sermon here.

Can I Get A Witness?

"I'm too old to be this dumb, 

I'm too old to be this dumb."

From the song Empty As A Drum by the Turnpike Troubadours, 

from their album Goodbye Normal Street

A Reason Why the Christian Life is So Hard

Michael Horton

"The reason why the Christian life is so hard, is so difficult, is because we can't help but fight them [sins]; not because we're good but because we're in Christ; because we're new creatures. That's what's so hard about the Christian life. On the basis of God's action we're called to action. But it's not to complete Christ's mission. It's to come to terms with Christ's mission and work every day. What Paul is saying here is stop letting sin bully you. Stop letting sin push you around. 'For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.'" -- Michael Horton commenting on a portion of Romans 6.