Forty Years and Seven Million Deaths

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.” – Jeremiah 29.7

Yesterday was the fortieth anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act (1967), so I believe. There was a Pro-Life stall on Cornmarket St. so I went along to stand with them for an hour. The Blackfriars were out in force in their splendid habits. I was standing next to a Romanist tutor from St. Benet’s Hall and he said that he presumed evangelicals were fairly conservative in their view on abortion. I replied rather sheepishly, “Yes.” Sheepishly, because I was the only evangelical there. I confess that I haven’t been committed in a particularly practical way to the Pro-Life society at University, and I’m sure I could have been a more faithful steward of the medical knowledge I have received in educating, so this is a criticism levelled at evangelicalism generally in which I include myself. There is reluctance in getting involved with things like this, perhaps because there is a feeling of inevitability about the whole thing. What can the small voice of protest possibly achieve? This is perhaps symptomatic of the current evangelical tendency to retreat from the public life of the country as a whole and to withdraw into a huddle in which we focus on our own concerns of church and mission. What a far cry from the evangelicalism of men like Wilberforce whose consistent pressure in Parliament for the abolition of slavery saw success two hundred years ago! Our citizenship is in heaven. We belong to the New Jerusalem which will one day come down out of heaven from God. We are strangers and exiles in this land which is not our home. But we are to seek the welfare of this place in which we now live. There must be evangelical involvement in the political, economic and social structures of this country. That will include taking a public stand for things like abortion legislation, which has seen the murder of at least seven million unborn children in the last four decades. True welfare is to be found living under God’s good and perfect law. And far from being a distraction from the work of edifying God’s people and of evangelism, it is in the welfare of our land of exile that we as God’s people find our welfare – and that God is glorified.

Also, click HERE for a piece by Charles Moore in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, which is well worth a read.

A Telling Comment

At church today I was talking to someone involved in club outreach. This is a new venture by the OICCU, in which people give out free water outside clubs every other Friday night. I believe there might also be information about talks as well. I think this a great way to demonstrate Christian love, and possibly initiate some gospel conversations and build relationships. Apparently, lots of people are “up for it” as the saying goes. I remarked that I wished lots of people were “up for” the open-air work on Cornmarket that has been going on for years here, and with which I am involved. The response I got was that club outreach is a lot less scary than the work on Cornmarket and it’s not really evangelism. Pretty much says it all really.

Calvin on Conviction that Scripture is God’s Word

While it is possible to answer the objections that people raise against Scripture, Calvin explains why it is not possible, humanly speaking, to convince people that the Bible is God’s word. He alone can bring that conviction by his Spirit. (Emphasis mine)

It is preposterous to attempt, by discussion, to rear up a full faith in Scripture. True, were I called to contend with the craftiest despisers of God, I trust, though I am not possessed of the highest ability or eloquence, I should not find it difficult to stop their obstreperous mouths; I could, without much ado, put down the boastings which they mutter in corners, were anything to be gained by refuting their cavils. But although we may maintain the sacred Word of God against gainsayers, it does not follow that we shall forthwith implant the certainty which faith requires in their hearts. Profane men think that religion rests only on opinion, and, therefore, that they may not believe foolishly, or on slight grounds desire and insist to have it proved by reason that Moses and the prophets were divinely inspired. But I answer, that the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason. For as God alone can properly bear witness to his own words, so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men, until they are sealed by the inward testimony fo the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who spoke by the mouth of the prophets, must penetrate our hearts, in order to convince us that they faithfully delivered the message with which they were divinely intrusted… Some worthy persons feel disconcerted, because, while the wicked murmur with impunity at the word of God, they have not a clear proof at hand to silence them, forgetting that the Spirit is called an earnest and seal to confirm the faith of the godly, for this very reason, that until he enlightens their minds, they are tossed to and fro in a sea of doubts.

Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture, carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit. Enlightened by him, we no longer believe, either on our own judgment or that of others, that the Scriptures are from God; but, in a way superior to human judgment, feel perfectly assured – as much so as if we beheld the divine image visibly impressed on it – that it came to us, by the instrumentality of men, from the very mouth of God. We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgment, but we subject our intellect and judgment to it as too transcendent for us to estimate. This, however, we do, not in the manner in which some are wont to fasten on an unknown object, which, as soon as known, displeases, but because we have a thorough conviction that, in holding it, we hold unassailable truth; not like miserable men, whose minds are enslaved by superstition, but because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it – an energy by which we are drawn and animated to obey it, willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge.

Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 7, Sections 4 and 5

Calvin on the Authority of Scripture

Why the Papists’ view of the authority of Scripture (a view held by many people on the street) is detrimental to the believer’s assurance and evangelism, and why it is wrong (emphasis mine):

A most pernicious error has very generally prevailed – viz. that Scripture is of importance only in so far as conceded to it by the suffrage of the Church; as if the eternal and inviolable truth of God could depend on the will of men. With great insult to the Holy Spirit, it is asked, Who can assure us that the Scriptures proceeded from God; who guarantee that they have come down safe and unimpaired to our times; who persuade us that this book is to be received with reverence, and that one expunged from the list, did not the Church regulate all these things with certainty? On the determination of the Church, therefore, it is said, depend both the reverence which is due to Scripture and the books which are to be admitted into the canon. Thus profane men, seeking, under the pretext of the Church, to introduce unbridled tyranny, care not in what absurdities they entangle themselves and others, provided they extort from the simple this one acknowledgement – viz. that there is nothing which the Church cannot do. But what is to become of miserable consciences in quest of some solid assurance of eternal life, if all the promises with regard to it have no better support than men’s judgment? On being told so, will they cease to doubt and tremble? On the other hand, to what jeers of the wicked is our faith subjected – into how great suspicion is it brought with all, if believed to have only a precarious authority lent to it by the good-will of men?

These ravings are admirably refuted by a single expression of an apostle. Paul testifies that the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph. ii. 20). If the doctrine of the apostles and prophets is the foundation of the Church, the former must have had its certainty before the latter began to exist. Nor is there any room for the cavil, that though the Church always derives her first beginning from thence, it still remains doubtful what writings are to be attributed to the apostles and prophets, until her judgment is interposed. For if the Christian Church was founded at first on the writings of the prophets and the preaching of the apostles, that doctrine, wheresoever it may be found, was certainly ascertained and sanctioned antecedently to the Church, since but for this, the Church herself could never have existed – as the foundation goes before the house. Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd than the fiction, that the power of judging Scripture is in the Church, and that on her nod its certainty depends. When the Church receives it, and gives it the stamp of her authority, she does not make that authentic which was otherwise doubtful or controverted, but, acknowledging it as the truth of God, she, as in duty bound, shows her reverence by unhesitating assent. As to the question, How shall we be persuaded that it came from God without recurring to a decree of the Church? it is just the same as if it were asked, How shall we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Scripture bears on the face of it as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black do of their colour, sweet and bitter of their taste.

Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 7, Sections 1 and 2

Jeff Meyers on Tongues

HERE’s a great post on tongues from Jeffrey Meyers.

His basic thrust is that what passes for tongues today is nothing like tongues in the church of the apostles, which have no relevance for the church now. They were non-Hebraic languages to instruct the Gentiles, confirm his gifts to them and manifest his judgment against the Jews, provoking them to jealousy, as per Deut. 28:49, 32:19-22, Isa. 28:11-12, 66:18, 1 Cor. 14:20-25.

Tongues were so prominent in Corinth because the church met right next door to the synagogue (Acts 18.7). During the transition period until around 70AD when God was inaugurating his international church, he provoked unbelieving Jews to jealousy with foreign languages (presumably this ceased at around that time because judgment finally fell on the Jewish nation with the destruction of the temple). Every time tongues are spoken in Acts, Jewish people are somehow involved.

Nehemiah 1

Click below for the sermon I preached on Nehemiah 1 at St. James’, Poole this morning (Morning Prayer, 11am):

Nehemiah 1 (25:13, 5.77MB)

Practical Puritan Pneumatology

I am continuing to sit at the feet of giants and learn in the school of Puritan prayer through The Valley of Vision. This one is something of an antidote to charismania.

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THE SPIRIT’S WORK

O God the Holy Spirit,
Thou who dost proceed from the Father and the Son,
Have mercy on me.
When thou didst first hover over chaos,
order came to birth,
beauty robed the world, fruitfulness sprang forth.
Move, I pray thee, upon my disordered heart;
Take away the infirmities of unruly desires and hateful lusts;
Lift the mists and darkness of unbelief;
Brighten my soul with the pure light of truth;
Make it fragrant as the garden of paradise,
rich with every goodly fruit
beautiful with heavenly grace,
radiant with rays of divine light.
Fulful in me the glory of thy divine offices;
Be my comforter, light, guide, sanctifier;
Take of the things of Christ and show them to my soul;
Through thee may I daily learn more of his love, grace, compassion, faithfulness, beauty;
Lead me to the cross and show me his wounds, the hateful nature of evil, the power of Satan;
May I there see my sins as
the nails that transfixed him,
the cords that bound him,
the thorns that tore him
the sword that pierced him.
Help me to find in his death the reality and immensity of his love.
Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his, ‘It is finished’.
Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of
atonement achieved, expiation completed,
satisfaction made, guilt done away,
my debt paid, my sins forgiven,
my person redeemed, my soul saved,
hell vanquished, heaven opened,
eternity made mine.
O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons.
Write them upon my heart, that my walk be
sin-loathing, sin-fleeing, Christ loving;
And suffer no devil’s device to beguile or deceive me.

Nehemiah 1

This is the outline of the sermon I shall, God willing, be preaching at St. James’, Poole on the Lord’s Day this week. Comments welcome. Nothing more can be added, unless something else is taken away, otherwise I shall be responsible for the burning of lunches across Poole.

Hymns: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation; O Come, O Come Emmanuel; Strangers and Exiles on the Earth (my new hymn); Hail to the Lord’s Anointed; Facing a Task Unfinished

Introduction

We live in a broken and divided world, as we’ve seen in the news this week, as perhaps we feel at home. Deep down, don’t we dream of something better? The message of the Bible is that in this broken and divided world, God is building his city, where all the nations of the world come together as one under his rule – Jerusalem, the city of peace. For Nehemiah, this was a physical city in the Middle East. It was a signpost to what was to come. Now it is in heaven, a city to which all Christians belong, and which is expressed in history in local congregations like St. James’. How is Jerusalem going to be built? Nehemiah wants to teach us something foundational: God’s people must turn to him in humble prayer. To move us, he first takes us to a time which illustrates the situation in which building so often takes place and then shows us the shape our response should take.

1 The plight of God’s city (vv. 1-3)

100 years previously, God’s people in the OT had been taken into exile and the capital destroyed as God judged them for their unfaithfulness. A later king allowed some survivors to return. Nehemiah receives some visitors and asks for news, but it is bleak. Though work had begun on the rebuilding, the people had been opposed and it had ceased, with no security or protection. They are in trouble and disgrace.

Northern Rock bank faced a crisis, but didn’t go the way of Barings in 1995. It was the oldest merchant bank in London and it was used by the British Monarchy, but through the fraud of Nick Leeson, it suffered huge losses and though the Bank of England tried to rescue it, they failed, it was declared insolvent, bought for £1 and was later split and sold on. Similarly Jerusalem had a great reputation as the city that bore God’s name. People and kings from all the nations of the earth used to come up to hear the wisdom of God’s king (Solomon) and the wealth of the nations came in. But it was destroyed, is now under foreign control and attempts to rebuilt it had failed. It is in trouble and disgrace.

There are parallels with the church today. England had a great Christian heritage – the Reformation, the Evangelical revival. But now, though the population increases, church attendance declines. The empty galleries here held people once. All we hear about in the news is division. The God Delusion is still in the Amazon top 10. At work or home, the only time God or Christ come up is when someone is swearing. When we try to share our faith, we meet scorn, hostility and indifference.

This easter, John Humphrys asked ++John Sentamu, “Will you acknowledge that the church is on its knees?” to which he replied, “What, you mean praying?” This is the what Nehemiah wants us to grasp must be our response if Jerusalem is to be rebuilt.

2 The prayer of God’s servants (vv. 4-11)

Nehemiah is one of many praying (v. 11). He is deeply moved – he weeps, mourns and fasts (so often associated with mourning). Alongside tears and prayer, fasting expresses grief to God and gives opportunity for concentrated prayer. Is that the extent to which the plight of God’s city affects us? If able, will we express our grief and dependence on God with fasting? The Lord Jesus had the expectation the practice would continue amongst his disciples and it would be entirely appropriate now.

Nehemiah bases his prayer on God’s character as the God who rules over all and who is faithful to his promises. This leads Nehemiah to express repentance, owning up to the way he, his family and the people have ignored God’s word, deserve nothing from him, and depend on him for mercy. Then he prays God would keep promises he made to his people in Deuteronomy, that if his people turn back to him in obedient faith, they will be gathered and brought back to Jerusalem. God declared to Moses this would be certain as in his grace he promises that he will change the hearts of his people so that they will return and be gathered. This is a promise that Jerusalem will be rebuilt. The prayer flows from God’s character. Because the is the God of heaven, he can gather his people from under the farthest heaven (what v. 9 literally says) and he can be trusted to fulfil his promises. God redeemed his people in the past so Nehemiah is confident to pray that he would restore his people (v. 10).This promises looks forward to fulfilment in Christ. Israel’s story of sin and judgment the story of all of us. We are all unfaithful to God. Since Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, all humanity has been in a state of exile from God, under his judgement, and they face exile forever. On the cross, Jesus took upon himself the punishment for sin in the place of his people. God in his love and mercy gathers people from throughout the whole world as he works in their hearts by his Spirit through tht preaching of his word, so that they return to him in the person of his Son the Lord Jesus, as they acknowledge him as their king and seek refuge in him for forgiveness. People are gathered into the place he has chosen to make his name dwell, the church founded on Christ. If you’re not a Christian, can I encourage you to trust v. 9 and return – trust in Christ, bow before him as your king, and so be forgiven, rescued from the exile of God’s judgment and be gathered into his city. The promise will be finally fulfilled when Christ returns – Revelation 21.2-4, 24-26. So it is that through God’s work in Christ, our broken and divided world is united in peace and enjoys prosperity as God’s city.

Nehemiah’s prayer is a Christian prayer – “Your kingdom come”. This is the shape our prayer must take. Will we remember that God is the God of heaven, the God of the covenant, humble ourselves, and as those redeemed at the cross, pray that God would remember his promise and bring people under the farthest heavens into his city through faith in Christ? Will we pray for that to happen in Poole, England and throughout the world?

Jonathan Edwards saw God do a remarkable work of restoring the church in the 18th c. He and other ministers prayed that God would by his Spirit work a reformation and revival, turn his people from their sins. They fasted, acknowledged their backslidings, humbled themselves, sought of God forgiveness.

Finally, Nehemiah’s last request is for one of the means he sees that God will use to keep his promise. He realises that in God’s sovereignty, the good of God’s people and the rebuilding of his city and therefore the hope of our broken world is in the hands of human authorities so his priority in prayer is that the king would be favourably disposed, so he and his peopel might be used by God to build Jerusalem. This is a priority in the NT, too – 1 Timothy 2. This has been a corrective in my prayer. As we ask God to build his city and gather his church, let us pray for our government, not take for granted the freedom we currently have, but thank God for it and pray for it to continue. Let us also pray for the church in parts of the world where the state opposes the church, that the hearts of those in power would be changed.

Conclusion

The cattle are lowing

Apologies for the sparseness of posts of late. Fifth year Medicine, while enjoyable thus far, is very, very busy.

A friend of mine was preaching in College chapel this evening and one of the lectionary readings was Jonah 3. These weren’t his points, but you know how it is when your eye wanders across the page and meets something interesting and…

First, justification by faith can be taught from this passage. In response to the Lord’s message through Jonah (a hellfire and brimstone sermon if ever there was one – judgment is proclaimed, but interestingly no mercy), the people of Nineveh believed God (v. 5) and so they repented and God relented of the disaster (v. 10).

Secondly, notice that it is man and beast which has to repent – man and beast are to fast. Man and beast are to wear sackcloth and call out mightily to God (vv. 7-8). Moreover, God pities Nineveh, in which are not only more than 120,000 people, but also much cattle (4.11). Now those verses have to mean something. I wonder if, alongside the idea of the Gentile mission that you get here, but you also have the idea of the redemption of the whole created order, animals included, something along the lines of “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtained the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8.21).

Just a thought.

Teach Us To Pray

I may have my own thoughts at some point in the future, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share something by someone else which has encouraged me. I bought The Valley of Vision which is a collection of prayers based on Puritan devotional material compiled by Arthur Bennett, sometime Canon of St. Alban’s. They wrote to keep a record of God’s intimate dealings with their souls, to test their spiritual growth and to encourage themselves by revisting them in times of low spiritual fervour. Some turned their personal devotions into prayers for family worship and the church at large. Others wrote prayers into their literary works to evoke their readers’ spiritual response. Other ministers advised their congregations to pen their private prayer thoughts and vocalise them. Almost as soon as I opened the book, I was knocked back by how God-centred, Biblical, experiential, rich, mature and robust these prayers are. They expose how shallow my prayers so often are. God has much to teach us through them. Below is one appropriate example for this ‘blog.

The Trinity

Three in One, One in Three,
God of My Salvation,
Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit,
I adore thee as one Being, one Essence,
one God in three distinct Persons,
for bringing sinners to thy knowledge and to thy kingdom.
O Father, thou hast loved me and sent Jesus to redeem me;
O Jesus, thou hast loved me and assumed my nature,
shed thine own blood to wash away my sins,
wrought righteousness to cover my unworthiness;
O Holy Spirit, thou hast loved me and entered my heart, implanted there eternal life,
revealed to me the glories of Jesus.
Three Persons and One God, I bless and praise thee,
for love so unmerited, so unspeakable,
so wondrous, so mighty to save the lost
and raise them to glory.
O Father, I thank thee that in fullness of grace
thou hast given me to Jesus, to be his sheep, jewel, portion;
O Jesus, I thank thee that in fullness of grace
thou hast accepted, espoused, bound me;
O Holy Spirit, I thank thee that in fullness of grace thou hast
exhibited Jesus as my salvation,
implanted faith within me,
subdued my stubborn heart,
made me one with him forever.
O Father, thou art enthroned to hear my prayers,
O Jesus, thy hand is outstretched to take my petitions,
O Holy Spirit, thou art willing to help my infirmities, to show me my need,
to supply words, to pray within me,
to strengthen me that I faint not in supplication.
O Triune God, who commandeth the universe,
thou hast commanded me to ask for those things that concern thy kingdom and my soul.
Let me live and pray as one baptised into the threefold Name.