Welcome to
Authentic
Word
The website of
David W. Norris
Defending and promoting the
orthodox, historic, God-centred and
Biblical Faith
Picture: Luther’s 1534 Bible
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
(Romans 5:8)
New titles just added to our publications >click here for details
THE CHRISTIAN and the CIVIL LAW
When Caesar wants the things that are God's
Are we bound by Scripture to obey without question every every law our governments take it into their heads to put on the statute book? What the Bible says.
As godlessness increases in our western democracies, as our leaders seek to redefine morality, diminishing all real sense of right and wrong, so Christian believers are increasingly coming into conflict with the law. Our governments seem unable to bring themselves to punish wrongdoers adequately, and they are now frequently harassing the law abiding. This is a reversal of the godly order. The question now arises as to whether as Christian believers we are bound to obey every law our governments take it into their heads to put on the statute book. ....
Now available as a short booklet for distribution details here click
Nothing else really matters
Across our great western countries, influenced as they have been so radically in the past by the Christian faith, the forces of unbelief and atheism have undermined our moral values, engendered thoroughgoing contempt for anything approaching authority, engineered the breakdown of marriage and family life, spread scepticism and uncertainty with respect to the nature and purpose of human life. Everything boils down to an inveterate hatred or complete disregard of God. We observe with horror increasing general lawlessness and the apparent inability of the authorities to get to grips with it despite the ‘spin’ and suspect statistics.
The spread of drug addiction among our young people is alarming and sad. The high point of the week for many UK youngsters – and the not so young – is to get ‘plastered’, to drink in the pubs and clubs until they drop out onto the pavement. Disillusioned, aimless millions respond in this way to the godless, inhumane, uncaring, bland, depersonalised world into which they have had the misfortune to be born. Frequently, all too many bright, intelligent people, young and old, hang themselves, take an overdose, jump over the edge of a cliff, hurling themselves onto the rocks below. The rest of us look on in total bewilderment. This is precisely what a talented student did not so long ago at Beachy Head on the south coast. She had everything and nothing to live for. She was due to go up to Oxford University the day after she died. She left a note containing this telling phrase ‘life is simply not for me’. What a waste! These occurrences are so common they no longer move us; we shed not a tear. Yet it could so easily have been a daughter of ours, a granddaughter perhaps. It does not bear thinking about. In a world that lacks love and concern, lacks meaning, where we are all reduced to being a small cog in someone else’s machine, where God and man are both dead, the only solution many find is either to seek substitutes for Christian grace and blessedness in a needle or a bottle, or try to escape the world altogether. In rejecting God we have brought down upon ourselves in this way His judgement. God has simply left us to it because of our obstinacy. Life has become so drained of meaning, devoid of hope, deprived of love, destitute of compassion.
What has ebbed from our modern world can only return on the tide of a return to godliness and godly laws in our land. Only as we find our way back to God and live in obedience to Him will anything change. The redeeming grace in Christ Jesus has a highly significant meaning for the decisions we have to make during our working and waking hours. The Word of God is not as remote from our daily modern life as many wrongly suppose. True meaning and contentment is to be found alone in obedience to the first and great commandment summarized for us by the Lord Jesus.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Our proper end is to love God and serve Him forever; only then will we also treat each other as we ought and show genuine concern and compassion. Human wrongs will not be righted by insisting on our human ‘rights’, but only as we seek first the kingdom, or rule of God. The great curse of modern life is not capitalism, globalism or the class struggle, but sin – being on the wrong side of God. Our work, our marriage and family life, relations between employers and employees, between different races and classes, are all blighted by this. No sphere of life is left unaffected. Sin is written into our laws and ingrained in our hearts. Without new and contrite hearts that have found in God an end, all attempts to change the world for the better are doomed to frustration and failure. What has been dubbed the ‘democratic way of death’ can be reversed only through an inner regeneration of the human heart by God. It is unbelief and apostasy that is at the root of the breakdown of the social fabric of modern society and only a return to the Scriptures can provide the ordering principle for life on earth we so desperately need. Only in submission to the universally binding Word of the living God can we find a true foundation on which to build.
The whole universe and the whole human race are caught up together in the ruin of sin. There is a solidarity of the whole human race in sin. After all, God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). We are sinners as individuals but also simply on the grounds that we are human beings we are sinners.
Following the philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, many understand faith to be a blind leap into the dark unknown. Nothing could be further from the truth. Truly seeing is believing, and believing is seeing. When on earth, the Lord Jesus opened the eyes of those born without physical sight. This in itself was something marvellous.
“Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.” (John 9:32)
The same Saviour who when on earth opened the eyes of the physically blind is the same One who today opens the eyes of the spiritually blind and makes them to see that which they denied existed. We may not fully understand the mechanics of such an experience but our testimony will be: “one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25). The apostle Paul’s testimony to Timothy was full of confidence from the beginning. He had not trusted in Someone unknown to him.
“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
(2 Timothy 1:12)
No one trusts a Saviour of whom he is not first convinced that He is able to save. Blind faith is not the faith of Christian believer.
Of those who listened to His teaching the Lord Jesus said:
“And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.” (Matthew 13:14-16)
“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. (Romans 5:6-11)
The CONCLUSION in David's new 48pp booklet 'The God Everyone Knows' NOW AVAILABLE obtainable here click
True freedom
Drunkenness, gambling, violence, dishonesty, uncleanness of every kind are all said to be the products of nature. Sinners are not willing and responsible individuals but freaks of nature, not sin is to blame but sickness. “Nature made me like this I cannot help myself. I am condemned to live like this in perpetuity.“ In a wild dance of death nature takes us, we cannot resist, but will end up exhausted after our three score years and ten. Shed no tears, do not bewail your fate, there is nothing you could have done to change the course of your life! Can there be no cure for the drunk whose father was a drunk? Can there then be no hope for sinners whose parents were sinners? Are we to be led forth as prisoners bound to follow the dictates of our genes? What a miserable philosophy! How marvellous by comparison is our Saviour who saves to the uttermost! Take your pick between a depressing doctrine of doom with no hope of ever changing and the hope and freedom of the Christian Gospel given us in Scripture. What a message we have to counter this wretched hopelessness! Away with this despotic despair! “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). I would rather that my life be predestined from beginning to end by a loving heavenly Father who has nothing in mind for me but good, I willingly surrender up my will to His, than be bound for even one second by phantom ‘laws of nature’ and my innate sin from which there is no escape even though I die with ‘freedom, freedom’ on my lips. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). Men are predestined under God to freedom or under nature to bondage.
David Norris
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
If the preaching of justification by faith alone is not at the centre of the Christian message, all else is in vain. The sinful heart of man, estrangement from God, lies at the heart of the great human tragedy we see everywhere around us. To refuse this is to refuse everything holy and good, everything that is God-honouring and it is to set forth on the broad road to hell and destruction. A message that bypasses this or substitutes it with something else, knowledge of a mythical rather than a biblical Jesus, is nothing better than empty blather that will bring nothing but disaster in its train.
The Reformation, without doubt, changed the course of western civilisation. Those countries influenced and moulded by the Reformation are now busily trampling over every vestige of its heritage still remaining. Inside the Church and outside it, liberal or evangelical alike, all want to shake off the Reformation. Germany, Holland, Great Britain, Scandinavia cannot do enough to “break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords”. Where this doctrine does not lie at the heart of any social or cultural change, it is no change. Those who attempt to work such change but at the same time disregard or set aside the preaching of justification by faith alone will achieve nothing or little of any lasting value. Not only must there be a change of heart within men, but any outward cultural or social changes must find their structures in this biblical Gospel. Changing the criminal law, re-introducing the death penalty, reorganizing schools, changing the marriage laws and laws on same-sex relationships, pulling down mosques and temples, demonstrating against this or that, all these have little meaning apart from the Gospel.
The changes that were wrought as a direct result of the Reformation began in Germany when one Augustinian monk desired above all else to be rid of his sin and to be right with God. This question must be answered before every other. Change without it is no change, or at best cosmetic and superficial. Social and political change is of minimal use if the majority of our fellow countrymen remain strangers to the grace of God. Apart from this, real change can only flow from the Gospel. This does not mean we should not speak out against the evil around us, the Reformers were no mealy-mouthed pushovers. Quite the contrary, but it must be done together with robust Gospel preaching. Men can be shown what they ought to do, but without the Gospel they can never know how.
The primary reason why our country is in the calamitous state it is today is because the professing Christian Churches have rejected outright, or lost sight of, the Gospel of justification by faith alone. Others fail to recognize its centrality in all things. Those who think they preach a biblical Gospel have all too often reduced it to a superficial 'decisionism' or shifted the emphasis from repentance and faith to 'knowing Jesus'. The Charismatic Movement and modern Evangelicalism have done nothing to stem the tide of evil now flooding our land. Nor can they, for they know nothing of the saving grace that lies at the heart of the biblical Gospel. The Reformation had the wide and lasting effect that it did because justification by faith alone was at its heart.
(David Norris)
Now why does that not surprise me?
So you do not believe God created the world. How come I am not surprised? You do not believe in the resurrection or miracles. That does not surprise me either. Should I try to come with proofs and arguments? No, I don't think so. After all, you have listened to Christians trying to give a rational explanation for their faith so many times and are not persuaded. Now that too does not surprise me. In fact, I am not surprised at anything you do not believe. You do not hide the fact that in the end you are an unbeliever, or at least an agnostic - which is just another word for ignorance of God. What else should I expect? Certainly, I have no new arguments to bring that will sweep you off your feet. I would not be surprised to learn that you do not even believe in God at all. You assume without evidence what you try to prove, and having said there is no God everything you encounter will be explained with this in mind and brought as 'evidence', so that finally you will say to me: "See, I told you there is no God. Or, if there is, His existence certainly cannot be proved."
There is a reason why I am not surprised about you. You see, there is a whole world out there to which you have no access and there is no point in me trying to show it to you because you are as blind as a bat. Now that suggestion probably makes you cross and, in a way, I am glad about that. To bring my arguments will be like trying to explain the beauties of the sunrise to a man born blind and for whom the word 'colour' means nothing. I'm afraid that until God opens your eyes to see what I can see I am wasting my time with you. But not quite, the very fact that you are rattled by what I say is evidence to me that something deep within your conscience has been stirred. For every human being ever to walk God's earth will recognise His voice, know that they are answerable to Him, and naturally try to shake Him off. That's why right now you are so cross.
Thankfully, things are not as bad as they seem. All is not lost. God can open your eyes and does so nearly always despite our animosity towards Him. Now that is what I call grace, mercy, and above all, love. I have a suggestion, because I know you are a fair-minded person. You are not the type to dismiss everything out of hand. Have a read in the God's Word, the Scriptures. If you do not have a copy, I will send you the only reliable version I know, the Authorised Version, without charge (see contact me). Why don't you say to God, just like the blind man said to the Lord Jesus, "Lord, that I might receive my sight" (Mark 10:51). You could just end up finding a whole new world out there of which at the moment you know nothing at all. You could well end up praying: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).
"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)
(David Norris)
A timely message from the past to modern evangelicals…
The Danger of Christian Complacency
by Dr J. C. Ryle, First Bishop of Liverpool (1816-1900)
Some boldly point to the faults of Protestants, and loudly cry that Romanists are quite as good as ourselves. Some think it fine and liberal to maintain that we have no right to think anyone wrong who is in earnest about his creed. And yet the two great historical facts, (a) that ignorance, immorality and superstition reigned supreme in England 400 years ago under Popery, (b) that the Reformation was the greatest blessing God ever gave to this land – both these are facts which no one but a Papist ever thought of disputing a hundred years ago! In this present day, alas, it is convenient and fashionable to forget them! …
The
Alignment of New Evangelicals with Apostasy
by former Roman Catholic priest, Richard Bennett
Evangelicals throughout the centuries have maintained that by justification by faith—and by faith alone—sinful human beings are in Christ made right before the all Holy God. ...“New Evangelicalism”, which willingly compromises with and accommodates another Gospel, has gained ground everywhere, beginning in the early 1960s. Since then, the Evangelical world has changed beyond recognition.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ARTICLE by former Roman Catholic priest, Richard Bennett
The Pope’s Plans on Organizing Political, Economic and Religious Activities Worldwide
On June 29, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI published a new encyclical entitled “Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).” After a list of Roman Catholic people to whom the document is addressed, it inclusively states, “and [to] all people of good will.” The Pope’s audience is to be not only the adherents of the Church of Rome, but also all those who claim to believe that justice, integrity, and love are the ethical foundations of human wellbeing.The Pope’s latest encyclical does not stand alone. Rather it is only the most recent addition to the corpus of Roman Catholic social doctrine. Catholic social doctrine, a tool of the Papacy, has been and is being carefully honed and directed toward gaining both spiritual and temporal control over all nations.
Numbers of good brethren remain in fellowship with those who are undermining the Gospel, and they talk of their conduct as if it were a loving course which the Lord will approve of in the day of His appearing. We cannot understand them. The duty of a true believer towards men who profess to be Christian, and yet deny the Word of the Lord and reject the fundamentals of the Gospel is to come out from among them. Complicity with error will take from the best of men the power to enter any successful protest against it.
C. H. Spurgeon
..or, can I be a Christian and still believe in evolution?
Evolution is a godless myth, a fable from the pit, and those who believe it have grasped it eagerly with both hands for reasons that have nothing to do with science. Evolution is magic of the abracadabra kind. Cover the chaos with a black cloth and wave a magic wand – the universe is the product of a blind, unconscious, inexplicable process. Stretching it out over billions of years is done simply to make it believable, but it only convinces those for whom the unacceptable alternative, creation out of nothing by the word of God, has already been written off before the discussion begins. Given enough time anything can happen! Viewed from a Scriptural perspective, evolution is an essential element of the revolt of our day against a sovereign and all-sufficient God who brings all things to pass after the counsel of his own will. Debating the pros and cons of evolution with unbelievers without addressing the issue of their own personal rebellion against God is unproductive and only legitimises their unbelief.
To read this reworked article click here
Now available as a 36pp booklet for wider distribution click here
“Many there be, or may be in most ages, which are no members of the visible Church, and yet better members of the true Church than the members of the Church visible for the present are.” –Jackson on the Church. 1670
Called mad for being a Christian?
then you are in good company....
"Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." (Acts 26:24-25)
One Infallible Test
B. W. Newton
The Scripture is the one infallible test by which we have to try all that we hear from any who profess to speak to us in the name of God. To apply this test is a duty. ...The higher the path proposed to us, the more rigorous must be the test applied.
"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son." (2 John 9)
It is a fearful thing to attack the authority of Scripture. We might almost say that it would be more easy to think with the infidel, that God had never given a revelation of His will, than to suppose that, after having given it, He has failed to watch over it by providence, and had allowed it to descend to us falsified and untrue.
What is the cause of our present woes?
"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." (Proverbs 29:2)
"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34)
"Remove righteousness and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which plunder is divided according to an agreed convention." (Augustine in City of God, IV:4)
"There is not a single instance in human history in which civil liberty was lost and religious liberty preserved”
JOHN WITHERSPOON (Presbyterian minister, president of the College of New Jersey, later Princeton)
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
There are always wars going on somewhere in the world, but to concentrate our thoughts on these alone would be to lose sight of the all-embracing and much more horrendous underlying reality. The truth is that the whole world is at war, divided into two irreconcilable camps. Furthermore, we each and every one are all involved, no one is excused, there are no conscientious objectors. There is no neutral ground from where we can observe the progress of the struggle. There is no middle ground, no no-man’s land, where those unwilling to fight can flee for refuge, no secret underground bunkers safe from the conflict, no isolated island in the sun where we can remain forgotten. There is no country to which we can retire, where this fight to the death is not underway, there is no place anywhere on earth where peace reigns save in the hearts of those who love God and even here there are continual armed sallies by the enemy. There is not one spot on earth the rule over which is not disputed by these two opposing parties. This struggle covers every part of life and we are all affected by it whether we like it or not. The ravages of this war are more horrific by far than any fought between the nations. No machine-gun batteries, no bombs can inflict such damage. No napalm, no atomic bomb, bestows such devastation. Those who would seek to escape cannot do so, for though they would hide, close their eyes; although they may sleep through the noise, this terrible conflict will still descend about them bringing with it eternal calamity and torture that no earthly war has ever done. This life and death struggle can end only in the defeat and destruction of one side and victory and eternal glory for the other.
Zion’s King shall reign victorious,
All the earth shall own His sway;
He will make His kingdom glorious,
He will reign through endless day.
What though none on earth assist Him,
God requires not help from man;
What though all the world resist Him,
God will realize His plan.Nations now from God estrangèd,
Then shall see a glorious light,
Night to day shall then be changèd,
Heaven shall triumph in the sight;
See the ancient idols falling!
Worshipped once, but now abhorred;
Men on Zion’s King are calling,
Zion’s King by all adored.Then shall Israel, long dispersèd,
Mourning seek the Lord their God,
Look on Him whom once they piercèd,
Own and kiss the chastening rod;
Then all Israel shall be savèd,
War and tumult then shall cease,
While the greater Son of David
Rules a conquered world in peace.Thomas Kelly 1769-1855
All or nothing...
"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him."
(1 Corinthians 8:6)
If there is just one square inch where the Word of God does not speak with supreme authority, then there is no place where it is authoritative. We cannot fence off anything; we cannot limit Scripture to 'spiritual ' matters and claim the rest for ourselves. If there is somewhere where the Word of God is not authoritative, then who has the final say in that place? Just one more arena for someone to play at being god. Equally, if there be but one discrepancy in the sacred text, one thing missing, then the Bible is altogether untrustworthy.
"Whatever doctrine is new must be wrong; for the old religion is the only true one; and no doctrine can be right, unless it is the very same 'which was from the beginning" JOHN WESLEY
NOW AVAILABLE IN DAYSPRING 14
Sleepwalking to disaster: an appraisal of modern progressive teaching methods and their effects on children
Read the Introduction here > read more
MAKE SURE OF YOUR COPY OF THE COMPLETE ARTICLE !
"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2)
The Christian life begins with a crisis, but continues with a process. Where there is no evidence of a process, there can have been no crisis. Where there is no transformation, there has been no regeneration. A seed that does not germinate, does not grow, does not blossom, produces no fruit, holds no life. Where professing Christians are little different than those around them, where they have the same goals, views of the world and of life, and maintain the same thought patterns as those living without Christ in the world, then any confession of Christ is but the sound of empty words, words devoid of meaning. We are non-conformists in this world and we must not think strange the antagonism and even hatred and persecution that goes with this. We rejoice in it, for it is yet one more assurance to us of our part in Christ whom the world also receives not.
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15)
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26)
"Falsehood may promise more, but it is ever cruel, for it promises but to deceive in the end"
Frank H. White
We are want to measure ourselves against others, more often than not to seek grounds for placing ourselves above them. It were better that we measure ourselves rather against Christ, for then we shall gain a true picture of what we are in and of ourselves. Comparison with others feeds our pride, comparison with Christ engenders a recognition of our true state and genuine humility. As believers, if there is any good in us, we are what we are only because of Him. If we despise others, we set at naught any profession of a work of Christ within us.
"God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13)
"In this new religious tide there is no demand at all for deliverance from sin; there is no longing whatsoever after redemption; nowhere the desire for a conscious personal reunion with the living God, our Father in heaven, declares itself. ...And if some of them are still appreciating some connection between the vocabulary of the old religion with their new sentiments, it is not the Father, and not the Saviour, whom they most fervently adore, but it is almost exclusively the Holy Spirit ...their constant endeavour is not to fear, to serve and to love the living God, their Creator and Disposer of their destinies, but to enjoy fully the mystical titillation of a delightful religious feeling."
Abraham Kuyper (1837 - 1920) from 'The Antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation'
Read Kuyper's THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST click here
A dying man to dying men ...turn and live!
Taken from Richard Baxter’s CALL TO THE UNCONVERTED
Edited and rewritten
GOD made you for everlasting life. The sad truth is that you have no knowledge or experience of it. You look at yourself and your life in a completely different way. You may feel content, but this is an illusion. In fact, your situation is one of pitiable misery. You may feel secure, but this is a dream. Your true state is one of constant danger of being swept away into eternal misery and loss at any moment. You stand before God lost, guilty, and full of sin. God, being all-knowing and all-seeing, sees you through and through, as you truly are. He sees and knows the things you hide from others, and He looks into depths within you that even you have never seen. God knows your true condition. He knows everything there is to know about you. He knows things about you that you would not want even your best friends to know, things you do not even know about yourself. Nothing is hidden from Him.
The true nature of Gospel preaching: John Elias of Anglesey
Preaching in the open-air, John Elias would address crowds of up to ten thousand or more. His concern was for the terrible condition of those ready to die with no saving knowledge of Christ. This was a Gospel for the whosoever, "no matter what nation, no matter how wretched or unworthy he might be; whosoever believeth." Elias saw himself as God’s messenger with a solemn responsibility to speak of the seriousness of man’s dreadful condition in sin. We should not imagine that the soil in which the good seed of God’s Word was planted in those days was any more ready to receive it than today, or that men’s sins were less and their hearts less hardened. What then is lacking but those who will go in God’s name to call men to Christ?
“We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves.” (C. H. Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, vol. VII)
God did not create man merely to see him destroy himself and for the rest of creation to go down with him
The answer of God to the human dilemma
The words of the poet William Cowper will find a sure echo in the hearts of all right-thinking people when reflecting on what is going on around us. The barrage of news coverage twenty-four hours a day can be more than overwhelming.
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is pain’d,
My soul is sick with every day’s report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill’d.
The Task, Book II
Let us begin at the beginning. It is always convenient to place the blame for everything that goes wrong a step or two away from us. We constantly depersonalise the world and all that goes on in it. We abstract ourselves from it as though what goes on out there has little to do with us. All the problems lie with the state, with youngsters out of control, with the abuse of drugs and alcohol, lack of moral teaching, schools, parents, immigration, you name it, the list goes on and on. But who makes up this nation of ours? People do, we do. Our nation is us and what goes on in our land today is a clear reflection of the kind of people we have become. If those who sit in government are in any sense sleazy or corrupt, this can only be an indication of what is going on in the rest of the nation. If there are more bad apples in the police, in parliament, in the judiciary, then this reflects on us all and we ought to be somewhat careful. If there is more divorce, then there are more of our marriages breaking down, and presumably more of us committing adultery. If there is more violence and murder, then there must be more of us taking to violence as an outlet for our frustration and hatred. If there is an increase in such misdeeds, this can only mean that a greater portion of our people is now engaging in these evils. Who is responsible for the current state of affairs? The answer to that question is easy. We are. These are the depths to which we as a nation, of which we each make up an individual part for better or worse, have sunk.
The world outside us is a macrocosm of what is present in the human heart. There is really little point is seeking change in the wider world, if we are not prepared to countenance change in our own lives. God calls upon all men everywhere to repent, turn from their former ways and seek Christ. "God … commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30).
“Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
(Psalm 2:10-12)
When a preacher becomes heretical, it is always about Christ. If he is not clear about Christ crucified, and you hear one sermon from him - that is your misfortune. But if you go and hear him again, and hear another sermon like the first - it will be your fault. If you go a third time - it will be your crime.
Good advice from C. H. Spurgeon
All modern bible translations, but especially those translated by ‘dynamic equivalence’, are largely designed for ‘dynamic’ reading. The reader is not recovering a communication given by God once-for-all-time in the past, but listening for the voice of God from a string of words that have no fixed meaning. They may say one thing to one person and something quite different to someone else, depending upon the circumstances. The same words may even say something different to the same person on different occasions. Truth is in the end what the reader makes it. There is no underlying fixed meaning. No single reading of this bible is right or wrong, just different. The reader is not a passive recipient but an active co-creator to whom the bible text provides reading ‘cues’. Any translation methodology, such as that used for the New International Version and most modern versions, that is based on this view of language cannot give us access to the unchangeable Word of God, ‘for ever settled in heaven’. > read more
"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." (2 Timothy 4:2-5)
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