Blogger’s Block
I have not been very regular with posts as of late. I suppose I could call it a case of blogger’s block or perhaps it is a severe lack of motivation, but in any event I have not been posting as frequently as I would like. I really hope to change that and I will put up a new book review later on this morning. I have a number of thoughts running around in my head related to various theological matters [especially the gospel] that I would like to put into writing. By God’s grace, I plan to be much more consistent with my posting.
Book Review: Studies on Saving Faith
There is a great deal that passes for saving faith in the church today that is anything but genuine saving faith. The church is and has been infected with what many refer to as easy believism. This is the view that basically says that if a person simply asks Jesus into their heart they will be saved. It is a view that virtually obliterates the Bible’s teaching on the Lordship of Christ. It presents the Gospel as something that is easy to believe and receive. This view has resulted in many false converts and has lulled untold numbers into a false sense of security. It is not wonder that the church is so weak and polluted by sin. This is nothing new, however, as this wonderful little book recently published by The Northampton Press makes clear. This book is a compilation of a series of articles written by Arthur Pink that first appeared in his magazine Studies in the Scripture from 1931-1933. Dr. Don Kistler has done the church of the Lord Jesus Christ a great favor by making these studies available in this format.
I will say at the outset of this review that this is one the best books that I have ever read. It is most certainly on my top ten list. It is a book that I highly recommend to every professing believer. It is a book that I think every pastor should consider as mandatory reading. It is just that good.
Arthur Pink was a Pastor/Author who lived from 1886-1952. For those who would be interesting in knowing more about Pink, I would recommend without reservation the wonderful biography, The Life of Arthur W. Pink, written by Iain Murray.
Pink understood the Biblical gospel and he also understood that many in his day were peddling a gospel that was thoroughly unbiblical. It was a gospel that eliminated the need for repentance and surrender to the Lordship of Christ; it was a gospel that said that a person simply had to accept Jesus as his or her personal savior in order to be saved. He understood that such a gospel was bringing into the membership of local churches men and women who were unconverted, who did not submit to the Lordship of Christ, and who did not live holy lives. In other words, he was able to clearly see that such a gospel was adding people to the membership of local churches but not the Kingdom of God. Pink was rightly outraged at this Satanic attack on the gospel and wrote the articles that comprise this book as a corrective to what was taking place.
Arthur Pink’s writing is clear and forceful. He does not write as one who is worried that his words might offend. At times, his pen is a very sharp sword. I think that this is a strength of these articles. Pink was dealing with a serious matter and he did so in a serious manner.
The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 is the introduction and lays out before the reader the purpose of the articles as well as an assessment of the situation that made the articles necessary. Part 2 deals with the meaning of saving faith. In the six articles that make up Part 2, Pink shows his readers what genuine saving faith is and how one may know if he really possesses the faith that saves. Part 3 deals with coming to Christ. In this section he shows what is involved in a person coming to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Part 4 deals with the matter of assurance. In this section he shows the reader how he or she may know if they are really saved.
As I stated earlier, I highly recommend this book. It is perhaps more necessary today than when Pink first wrote these articles. The plague of easy believism has not been eradicated. If anything, it has only gotten worse. It is vital that professing Christians understand the differences between the faith that does not save and the faith that does.In 2 Corinthians 13.5 Paul wrote that we are to examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith and this book is very helpful in that process.
Rating: [Rating:5/5]
You can purchase this book directly from The Northamptom Press.
A Prayer for Boldness
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak [Ephesians 6.18-20].
Paul wrote these words while in prison. He did not write these words as a free man, but as one who was ‘an ambassador in chains’. What Paul wrote and requested of the believers in Ephesus is simply incredible. After giving them an exhortation on the matter of prayer in general, he asks them to pray for him and to pray for him in a particular fashion. He did not ask them to pray for his release from prison. He did not ask them to pray that God would give him an easy and carefree life. He did not ask them to pray for his physical health or material wealth. He asked them to pray for him that God would give him utterance and open his mouth to proclaim the gospel with boldness. I cannot read these words without being absolutely overwhelmed with a deep sense of both amazement and conviction. If anyone was ever a faithful and bold witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was Paul. If anyone was ever obedient in the opening of his mouth to declare the gospel of Christ, it was Paul. Yet here he is asking the Ephesian Christians to pray for him and to pray that God would open his mouth and that he would be bold to proclaim the gospel. If Paul felt it necessary to ask for others to pray for him in that way, how much more necessary is it that we ask others to pray in a similar fashion for us and that we pray for others in this way? I would say that we stand in infinitely greater need of boldness in witnessing than did Paul. If that is the case, and I most certainly do believe that it is the case, do we pray this way for ourselves? Do we ask others to pray for us in this way? Do we pray this for other believers? Do these words of Paul express the desire of our hearts?
The state of the world is no different today than it was 2,000 years ago when Paul was alive. Believers are surrounded on every side by fallen men and women in a fallen world. Though the names and faces have changed, the spiritual condition has not. Nor has the answer. What was it that unsaved people in the first century needed to hear and believe? What was the message that Paul faithfully and tirelessly brought to those unbelievers whom he encountered? The message from Paul was always the same; it was the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s message to unbelievers in the first century was "Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." If you read any of Paul’s epistles you will find this to be true. Lost people today need to hear the same thing that Paul proclaimed two millennia ago: the good news that salvation is found in Jesus Christ. What believers need is the open mouths and boldness that Paul writes of in Ephesians 6. We do not need to pray for cleverness or creativity or ingenuity; we need to pray that God will open our mouths and give us the boldness to proclaim the gospel.
Again, I find these words to be very convicting, because it is not often that I pray that God will open my mouth and give me the boldness to share the gospel with unbelievers. I strongly suspect that this the case with many other believers as well. We know that we are surrounded by unbelievers; we know that the only hope for unbelievers is that they repent and believe in Christ; we know the only way they are going to realize this is if someone comes along the preach the gospel to them; we know that we have been called to be the ones by whom the gospel is preached to those unbelievers. In spite of knowing all of this, there is a tendency on the part of most Christians to be hesitant, resistant, or downright obstinate when it comes to sharing the gospel. We try to cover our sin of disobedience with all manner of flimsy excuses: we do not have the necessary training; we do not know any unbelievers; evangelism is best left to the trained professionals; I am just too shy to talk to other people about Jesus, and so forth. These excuses are shameful and sinful. The fact of the matter is that if we are not involved in evangelism, we are in sin. Hence, there is a great need for each of us to pray that utterance may be given to us in the opening of our mouths to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.
I urge you to pray that for yourself. I urge you to ask others to pray that on your behalf. I urge you to pray that for others. What a difference an army of open mouthed bold witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ would make in this lost, dark, and hell-bound world!
For Whom Are You Living?
In Romans 14.7 the Holy Spirit through Paul spoke these absolutely profound words:
For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself.
Why do I find that statement so profound? Because it confronts my own tendency to be selfish, self-centered, and self-seeking and it does so in a straightforward and head-on fashion as I suspect that it also does with countless others. It is a necessary reminder that the Lord God Almighty has not saved us so that we may live or die simply to please self. How much of our lives are taken up by the pursuit of various self-seeking, self-satisfying pleasures? How much time do we spend each day living for self? If we are honest about the matter, we would most likely have to answer that we spend a great deal of time and expend a great deal of energy and effort and lay out vast resources living for self. Practically everything we encounter in our culture caters to this sort of mindset. When was the last time you saw a commercial on television that did not, in some way or other, encourage you to live for self. The products that are peddled are meant to make your life more pleasureable, are they not?
How are Christians to view all of this? Well, we must come face to face with the clear teaching of God’s Word that is put forth in the Romans 14.7 passage I mentioned at the beginning of this post: we must understand that we are not to live for self, nor are we to die for self. We are to live and die for the Lord. What that means is that we are to seek to please the Lord in all things both in life and death. We have to keep in mind passages of Scripture such as:
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God [1 Corinthians 10.31].
Even so consider yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus [Romans 6.11].
And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." [Luke 9.23].
What all believers need is a daily dose of self-denial. We must see that we are not to live to pursue those things that please self, but, rather, we are to pursue those things that are pleasing to God. What are those things that are pleasing to God? Here is a sample from Scripture:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…[Galatians 5.22-23].
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise dwell on these things. [Philippians 4.8].
May the Lord find us faithful to live for Him [as well as die for Him] each and every day. What will you do to lie to the glory of God today? How will you seek the pleasure of God today?
Young People and Media
In the 1960′s Timothy Leary coined the phrase, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” to describe his self-proclaimed religion of psychedelic drug taking. Here is how Leary stated this:
“Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out.”
This goal was to be reached by means of taking drugs such as LSD.
The children and young people of today have probably never heard of Timothy Leary, but they have found another way to “turn on, tune in, drop out” and that is through their rampant obsession with various forms of modern media. In a recent study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, it was reported that the average teen/tween spends over 71/2 hours per day consuming some form of media. The report further stated that by multitasking, that is, making use more than one form of media at a time, “today’s youth pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those daily 71/2 hours”.
The introduction to the study states:
As anyone who knows a teen or a tween can attest, media are among the most powerful forces in young people’s lives today. Eight- to eighteen-year-olds spend more time with media than in any other activity besides (maybe) sleeping—an average of more than 7½ hours a day, seven days a week. The TV shows they watch, video games they play, songs they listen to, books they read and websites they visit are an enormous part of their lives, offering a constant stream of messages about families, peers, relationships, gender roles, sex, violence, food, values, clothes, and an abundance of other topics too long to list.
This study was conducted by surveying more than 2,000 young people across the USA from ages 8 to 18. The purpose of the study was to determine the amount of time the young people spend engaged in making use of some form of media such as TV, computers, video games, music, print, cell phones, and movies.
The study addressed questions such as:
- Which media are young people using?
- How much time do they spend with each medium in a
- typical day?
- How have new media platforms changed the way children and adolescents consume media?
- How big a role are mobile and online media playing in young people’s lives?
- How are they using computers and the Internet?
- What is the media environment in which young people live—that is, the types and number of media available in their homes and bedrooms?
- What changes have there been in media use patterns over the years?
- How does media use vary across different age groups?
- Are there differences in the media use habits of boys versus girls, or among Black, White and Hispanic youth?
The results of this study were also compared to earlier studies conducted in 1999 and 2004 to see how media use patterns in young people have changed over the years.
What the researchers discovered is that the lives of today’s young people are absolutely saturated with media in every conceivable form. In fact their consumption of media increased from the earlier studies in every area expect that of reading. The following chart chronicles the number of hours that each survey participant spend consuming some form of media per day.
I find those results to be quite alarming, although not surprising. Our culture is a culture of media and it is inevitable that our children are touched by this. Our mantra today seems to be, “He who dies with the most gadgets wins.” Now, do not get me wrong. I am quite intrigued by modern technology and the ability to more quickly disseminate information in various forms. But it is possible to get too much of a good [or not so good] thing. I think we have long passed that point as the results of this study make clear.
As I reflect on all of this, the question that comes to my mind is this: What sort of affect is this media obsession having on our young people? How is all of this time spent consuming the various forms media influencing them? Can this possible be good for them in any way? How is helping the Christian youth to grow to be more like Christ? Sadly, I must say that I see far more negatives than positives. If young people spend so little time reading, for instance, how can they possibly know what God expects of them? The only way for one to know God’s expectation is to read what He has declared in His Word. As the study shows, however, young people do very little reading and so it much more likely that their behavior is going to be shaped by what they see on TV and what they share with one another on Facebook.
What are parents going to do about this situation? I believe that Christian parents must take action. We must pull the plug on some, if not, most, of the media that is flooding the lives of our children. We must be faithful to lead them to the Word of God and teach them as God has called us to do. We must not forget what God has said to parents in His Word.
[Deuteronomy 6.1-9 NAS] “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, 2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. 3 “O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 “And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; 7 and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 “And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
[Ephesians 6.4 NAS] And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
We must realize that the prince of this world [Ephesians 2.2] does not have the best interest of our children in mind. He really is a roaring lion roaming around looking for those whom he may devour [1 Peter 5.8]. We must do all that we can to protect our children and bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We must be vigilant; we must not grow weary in this endeavour. We must prove to be faithful stewards in the raising of our children. In short, we must teach them the Word and go right on teaching them the Word.
It does not seem far fetched to say that media has become the LSD of today. But there is hope. God has not abdicated His throne. He is not powerless in the face of today’s media onslaught. He is able and parents must look unto Him trust in Him and rely upon His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. May God move believing parents to foster change by rearing their children according to the Word of God and saturate their lives and minds and hearts with God’s Word rather than the world.
Albert Mohler: Does God Hate Haiti?
Dr. Albert Mohler has written an excellent article on the earthquake that struck the island of Haiti and the question of God’s judgment. It is a must read that helps to put the whole matter into its proper Biblical perspective.
You can access the article here.
Helping Those In Haiti
I received the following message from Sovereign Grace Ministries concerning their efforts to assist the victims of the earthquake in Haiti:
Friends,
In response to the devastating earthquake that occurred in Haiti on Tuesday, Sovereign Grace Ministries has opened a Disaster Relief fund to help deliver food, medicine, and other needed aid there. We will distribute the funds we raise primarily through existing ministry contacts we have on the island—both in Haiti and the Dominican Republic—who are already involved in relief efforts.
If you want to join us in our support of these efforts, you can donate to the Disaster Relief fund on our website or by calling 800.736.2202. On behalf of our friends in Haiti, thank you for considering this opportunity to give.
Regardless of your ability to make a donation, please join us in praying that those affected by the earthquake would receive aid quickly, and that despite these hardships the gospel would continue to go forward in that nation.
With appreciation,
Patrick Ennis
Executive Director
Sovereign Grace Ministries
Those who would like to help may visit the Sovereign Grace Ministries website or call them at 1.800.736.2202.
The Religion of Green
Man is a religious being. That may seem to be a strange statement to some; in fact, there are probably those who would strongly disagree with the statement. I do believe it to be true, however. If we will study the history of mankind, we will find that man has always worshiped someone or something. Even those who reject the worship of the One True and Living God of the Bible inevitably put something in His place and offer their worship to that substitute. The vast majority of people living today may very well have their religion all wrong, but they are religious nevertheless. As Albert Mohler points out, modern man’s religion of choice may be the religion of green [the worldview, not the color]. Buying into the whole global warming fallacy has led many to bow at the idol of green. Mohler’s article offers some very helpful insight into the green movement. You can read the article at his blog by clicking this link.
Welcome to my blog. I am Mark Fuss and I serve as Pastor-Teacher of Sovereign Grace Bible Chapel in Englewood, FL. I have been married to my wonderful wife, Kristy, since 1986 and we have three beautiful daughters and one precious granddaughter.
