The Gospel Coalition

Preaching on Isaiah 7:14, C. H. Spurgeon closed with this flourish:

“God with us.” It is hell’s terror. Satan trembles at the sound of it; the black-winged dragon of the pit quails before it. Let him come to you suddenly, and do you but whisper that word, “God with us,” back he falls, confounded and confused. “God with us” is the laborer’s strength; how could he preach the gospel, how could he bend his knees in prayer, how could the missionary go into foreign lands, how could the martyr stand at the stake, how could the confessor own his Master, how could men labor, if that one word were taken away? “God with us” is the sufferer’s comfort, the balm of his woe, the alleviation of his misery, the sleep which God gives to his beloved, their rest after exertion and toil. “God with us” is eternity’s sonnet, heaven’s hallelujah, the shout of the glorified, the song of the redeemed, the chorus of angels, the everlasting oratorio of the great orchestra of the sky.

In a sermon preached during the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield laid bare the four archaeological layers always uncovered in true repentance.  Preaching on “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14), Whitefield said that before we can speak peace to our hearts:

One, “You must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the law of God.”  The dawning of non-denial.  Realism.  Honesty.  Brokenhearted self-awareness.  “Was ever the remembrance of your sins grievous to you?  Was the burden of your sins intolerable to your thoughts?  Did ever any such thing as this pass between God and your soul?  If not, for Jesus Christ’s sake, do not call yourselves Christians.”

Two, “You must be convinced of the foundation of all your transgressions.  And what is that? I mean original sin.”  We realize that, even when we haven’t acted on our impulses, the very fact that our hearts rise up against God is itself damning.  All self-hope stripped away.  “When the sinner is first awakened, he begins to wonder, ‘How came I to be so wicked?’  The Spirit of God then strikes in and shows that he has no good thing in him by nature.”

Three, “You must be troubled for the sins of your best duties and performances.”  Our righteous self-images start to deconstruct, our excuses, our rationalizations, our entitlements.  Every false refuge gives way.  “You must be brought to see that God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up.  Our best duties are so many splendid sins.  There must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of the heart.”

Four, “There is one particular sin you must be greatly troubled for, and yet I fear there are few of you think what it is.  It is the reigning, the damning sin of the Christian world, and yet the Christian world seldom or never thinks of it.  And pray what is that?  It is what most of you think you are not guilty of, and that is the sin of unbelief.”  Treating God as unreal at a functional level in our hearts and lives and churches and strategies.  “Most of you have not so much faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the devil himself.  I am persuaded the devil believes more of the Bible than most of you do.”

“One more then.  Before you can speak peace to your heart, you must not only be convinced of your actual and original sin, the sins of your own righteousness, the sin of unbelief, but you must be enabled to lay hold upon the perfect righteousness, the all-sufficient righteousness, of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Then you shall have peace.”

Select Sermons of George Whitefield, pages 75-95.

“The Scriptures constantly teach that man’s only true happiness is in God, and that his full happiness in God cannot be attained in this life, but that believing men have that happiness assured to them in the life to come.  Commenting on John 14:6, Godet says, ‘Jesus here substitutes the Father for the Father’s house.  For it is  not in heaven that we are to find God, but in God that we are to find heaven.’”

Alexander Whyte, An Exposition on the Shorter Catechism, page 137.

On December 26, 1944, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army was sent to the Philippine island of Lubang.  His mission was to resist the American advance, and he was ordered to fight on indefinitely.  Onoda never got word when the war ended some months later.  For thirty more years he went on fighting World War II.  He lived in hiding, came out at night to steal food from the villages, shot at people now and then.  About ten years into it he found a newspaper article about himself, but he thought it was a trick to get him to surrender.  The Philippine government dropped leaflets into the jungle, asking him to come out.  They brought loudspeakers in and shouted, “Onoda, the war is over.”  One day his own brother stood at the microphone and begged him to give up, but he didn’t believe it.  He fought on until 1974, when the Japanese government sent in his old commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, who ordered Onoda to surrender.  He finally gave up.

That man’s mind was trapped in 1945, he shut out the good news of peace and lost 30 years of his life hiding in the jungles, loyal to a lost cause.  We can be like him today, with our thoughts and feelings trapped in a war that ended long ago.

The night Jesus was born, the angels stepped up to the microphone and shouted, “Peace on earth” (Luke 2:14).  For 2000 years God has been dropping leaflets of the good news into the jungles of our minds.  Through his cross Christ won the victory over everything against us.  It’s time to give up our lost causes, come out of hiding and live again in a new, post-war world of grace, ruled by Christ.

George Marsden, in his Jonathan Edwards: A Life, refers to Edwards’ belief in “the great end of creation, God’s redemptive love” (page 479).  He sums up Edwards’ thought this way:

“God’s trinitarian essence is love.  God’s purpose in creating a universe in which sin is permitted must be to communicate that love to creatures.  The highest or most beautiful love is sacrificial love for the undeserving” (page 505).

If Edwards is right, and he is, then sacrificial love for undeserving people is not a problem for pastoral ministry; it is even more than an opportunity for pastoral ministry.  Sacrificial love for undeserving people is the reason why the universe exists.

“To the praise of the glory of his grace.”

“Fool’s gold: a term for non-gold ore similar in color to gold, usually mistaken by beginning prospectors because of the brassy glitter.”

In The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741), Jonathan Edwards pulled out of 1 John 4 the biblical indicators that God is at work, even if the people involved are complicating it with their own sins and eccentricities.  The true gold of grace is discernible in these four ways:

One, when our esteem of Jesus is being raised, so that we prize him more highly than all this world, God is at work.

Two, when we are moving away from Satan’s interests, away from sin and worldly desires, God is at work.

Three, when we are believing, revering and devouring the Bible more, God is at work.

Four, when we love Jesus and one another more, God is at work.

Satan not only wouldn’t produce such things, he couldn’t produce them, so opposite are these from his nature and purposes.  These are sure signs that God is at work, even with the imperfections we inevitably introduce.  Don’t turn away because of the non-gold; prize the gold.  God is giving it.

“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”  Luke 2:19

The shepherds glorified and praised God for the birth of Jesus.  That was good.  But it’s one thing to get riled up about a dramatic event; it’s another thing to take that event into our hearts, so that it redefines the hope we’re living for.  Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

The word translated “treasure” implies she said to herself something like this: “I must never forget what God has shown me.  I will guard this in the deepest recesses of my being.  What God has done is the treasure of my heart.”

She also “pondered” these things.  Not even Mary understood Jesus fully.  But she began to put together growing insight into the biblical prophecies about her Son, the earlier birth of John the Baptist, the report of the shepherds, the later visit of the wise men, and so forth.  She thought it through, again and again.

The truth sustained her, while others just lost their enthusiasm.

“The rabbis spoke from authority, Jesus with authority. . . . ‘Thus says the Lord’ is typical of the Old Testament, but Jesus’ characteristic expression is ‘Truly, truly, I say to you.’  The difference is significant.  Jesus appealed to no other authority as He spoke to men of the deep things of God.”

Leon Morris, The Lord from Heaven, pages 11-12, italics his.

On Tuesday, December 1st, Dr. Hudson T. Armerding was released from this life into the presence of his Lord and Savior.  Dr. Armerding was President of Wheaton College when Jani and I were students there.  We revere the memory of this profound man of God.

Going through my “Dr. Armerding” file last evening, with many personal letters back and forth through the years that I will always cherish, I found this letter he wrote to Christianity Today on August 12, 1996:

“. . . For me, the specific declarations of Scripture are statements to be accepted as both true and normative.  Indeed, it was the preaching of this authoritative Word in the power of the Holy Spirit that God used to cause me to receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation.  In the subsequent years it has been the systematic truthfulness of the Scriptures as of first-order importance in disclosing the remarkable character of a sovereign God that anchored me in those episodes of doubt, disobedience, or the despair of the dark seasons of the soul.  Thankfully, it was not my experience that was primary but the specific commands and promises of a faithful and unchangeable God.  These enabled me to adjudge my experiences and, at least to a degree, see his hand of purpose and blessing in them.

A number of us accept ‘rational propositions in an orderly system’ such as the Westminster Confession but repudiate the idea that this leaves us with a Christianity reduced to ‘mere orthodoxy.’  On the contrary, the more I reflect on the specific truths about Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the more I am moved to worship and praise, awe and wonder, obedience and sacrifice, renunciation and acceptance.”

O Lord, raise up such men for the next generation!

“I hope as I make advances in the spiritual life, I shall show my zeal more and more tempered with true Christian knowledge and prudence.  I would willingly have none of my old wild fire mingled with the sacred fire that comes down from God’s altar.  I desire not only to do things for God, but to do them in the best manner.”

“O let us be meek and quiet!  O let us wait and we shall see the salvation of God.”

“While others are disputing, let us be growing.  This will be the best way to convince those who you find will not be convinced any other way.”

“I lose nothing by being quiet and leaving all to Him.”

George Whitefield’s deepening spirituality as the controversy with John Wesley broke his heart, quoted in Arnold Dallimore’s biography of Whitefield, II:75.