A Past Address, A Present Need

A piece of an address given by P.T. Forsyth in 1908:

"The grace of God cannot return to our preaching or to our faith till we recover what has almost clean gone from our general, familiar, and current religion, what liberalism has quite lost--I mean a due sense of the holiness of God. This sense has much gone from our public worship, with its frequent irreverence; from our sentimental piety, to which an ethical piety with its implicates is simply obscure; from our rational religion, which banishes the idea of God's wrath; from our public morals, to which the invasion of property is more dreadful then the damnation of men...This holiness of God is the real foundation of religion--it is certainly the ruling interest of Christian religion. In front of all our prayer or work stands 'Hallowed be Thy name.' If we take the Lord's Prayer alone, God's holiness is the interest which all the rest of it serves. Neither love, grace, faith, nor sin have any but a passing meaning except as they rest on the holiness of God, except as they arise from it, and return to it, except as they satisfy it show it forth, set it up, and secure it everywhere and for ever. Love is but its outgoing; sin is but its defiance; grace is but its action on sin; the cross is but its victory; faith is but its worship. The preacher preaches to the divinest purpose only when his lips are touched with the red coal from the altar of the thrice holy in the innermost place. We must rise beyond social righteousness and universal justice to the holiness of an infinite God."

Source: p. 22, 23. The Cruciality of the Cross.

I Shot This Today

I shot one of these today. It was fun. It had been quite awhile since I shot the 'ole AR-15...like 7 years. I did pretty good. At 200 yards I was in the black on the target for all 5 rounds.

Just call me Quigley.

(Image HT: Wikipedia)

Jesus Restores the Inheritance

Sinclair Ferguson on the restoration of all things in Jesus:

"The Father is the Creator and Lord of all. But in His generous love, the wealth of the universe was to be the inheritance of Adam as God's image and son...But Adam tried to steal what was not his; as a result, he forfeited his entire inheritance through his sin...But the Father was determined that the inheritance should be restored. Indeed, He already had drawn up plans for its restoration...Slowly, an outline of the strategy became visible through divine revelation: the Seed of the woman, a descendant of Abraham, a son of David, a messianic Prophet, Priest, and King, and a Suffering Servant--one Man who was also the Son of God--would fulfill all the promises of God. He would be a second Man, making a new beginning. He would also be the last Adam. He would do all that Adam had failed to accomplish in order to enter into a full inheritance. But He wold forfeit His own life in order to bear the divine punishment for Adamic sin. He, unlike Adam, would be meek and inherit the earth. In Him the right of inheritance would be restored. He would be 'appointed heir of all things'..." (p. 121, 122).

In Christ Alone.

The Courage to Be Protestant

David Wells' sociological-theological treatise Above All Earthly Powers I really enjoyed. Now he is publishing The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World. Sounds good.

Jesus Has Risen from the Dead and established New Creation

NT Wright states:

"The very shape of the poem [Col. 1.15-20] insists that Jesus' resurrection, as a one-off event, is an act not of the abolition of the original creation but of its fulfillment: the same Messiah and lord is the one through whom all things were made in the first place, the one in whom all things cohere, the one in and through whom all things are now brought into a new relationship with creator God and with one another...with the resurrection itself a shock wave has gone through the entire cosmos: the new creation has been born, and must now be implemented...the resurrection of Jesus himself is the historical event through which the creator's plan to rescue the world from sin and death has been decisively inaugurated, following the death whereby sin was itself dealt with." (p. 239, 240)

Source.

Redemption

NT Wright states:

"...Paul keeps Genesis 1 and 2 in the back of his mind at all times, and regularly...sees the final act of redemption not as a rescue from creation but as the renewal of creation." (p. 224)

Source.

Death, thou shalt die!

"One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."

John Donne, Holy Sonnets

Source: (quoted on p. 208)

A Sermon - Hebrews: A Call to Jesus and a Call to Endurance

The sermon I preached at The Crossing Church in AZ is now up. It is an overview of the book of Hebrews. Let's call it Hebrews: A Call to Jesus and a Call to Endurance (click to listen or right click and "save as" to download). I will probably post the text eventually but for now here is the audio.

Update

I've had some business and church-related activities the past few days so I will get to posting again soon. I'll be back to my normal life schedule next week.

I preached at The Crossing Church in Arizona yesterday on the book of Hebrews and will post that soon. I was told they will have it on there website anytime so I will link that as well.

March Madness is finally here. It's a great time to watch basketball. Even if you don't its an American responsibility to fill out your bracket.

I posted a link to Abraham Piper's (John Piper's son) blog the other day on the blogroll. Do check it out. It's a clever blog that usually only has posts of twenty-two words. Here is one of them:

"Many admirable parents let their little children watch TV and movies every day.

Would anyone be interested in explaining this to me?"

Killing Bunnies and Settling Catan

My wife and I love board games.

Recently we have been playing The Settlers of Catan and its expansion pack Cities and Knights. This is a great strategy game and I recommend to all, especially those who like to play games with a couple friends for 3 hours. Pure strateg-ery and good times :)

Just yesterday we purchased another wonderful new game: Killer Bunnies. All I can say is you should play it. It cannot be explained. Its a card game that was probably invented after a few hallucinogens and takes the sobriety out of your normal everyday game of cards. Ya, well, just buy it and play it. Don't be intimidated by the bunny on the cover, nor by the time it takes to look through the manual(s). It is well worth it and there are several expansion packs of cards to be purchased at a later time to continue the bunny carnage.

Cheers to board gamers, er...and card gamers!