Sermon Jam

12 02 2009

Heres one more for today. Preached by Paul Washer.  By the same guys: http://sermonjams.com/

Go





Sermon Jam

12 02 2009

Listen to this. From a sermon preached by John Piper

Its a Sermon Jam made by Relevent Revolution here’s a link to there site for more: http://sermonjams.com/

Suffer





About the Video Blog, Sermon and Quick Quotes Pages

12 02 2009

Yes I know, they are empty. That’s becuase I’m having some problems with my design stuff. I’m not all that good with this blogging thing, being kinda new to it so…..

What I’ll do is just post the video blogs, sermons and Quick Quotes on the home page.

So that’s that. They will be up soon now that I’ve decided what to do.

In Christ,

Scotty





The Glorious Doctrine of Justification

12 02 2009

 

Justification is one of the major truths of Christian truths. Without a proper view of this doctrine, salvation is not possible. Justification can be interpreted as our standing with God, no longer being the objects of His wrath and curse but now being objects of His love and grace. Justification is an instantaneous action, it is not progressive. Not one believer is more justified than another. A truth that insepperable from justification is that of sanctification. From the moment we are justified we begin to be sanctified, that is set apart, made holy, or conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

One point I’d like to add is this: The people of God have always been justified the same way. There is no difference in justification between the Old Covenent and the New Covenent, it as always been by grace through faith. The Jews who were under the Law were justified by their faith in the coming Messiah and his future work and we who are no longer under the Law are saved by faith in the Messiah who has come and has completed his work. We, as New Covenant believers, are no better or more justified than the regenerate who were under the Old covenant.

Justification is a legal act. God is the judge and we are the guilty party deserving punishment. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death, and we are sinners who are worthy of our just wage or pay, which is death. As much as a laborer is worthy is his wages (1 Tim. 5:18), sinners are worhty of death. If we were righteous, our due payment would be life, but so that no man may boast (Eph. 2:9) we are justified (or made to be righteous) by God’s grace and Christ’s blood. It was decreed in God’s sovereign plan that Adam would fall and bring sin into the world, corrupting human nature and necessitating a Saviour. God’s plan for humanity is the most magnificant and the most revealing of God’s nature and glory, it is the best plan. It is plan A. Though some may say that God is cruel and unjust for allowing man to fall and become sinful, it is in fact, the most just and most glorious thing imaginable.

A distortion of this doctrine is a distortion of Christianity as a whole. Justification by grace through faith alone is the only way to salvation, but not only is this act necessary, but also a belief and trust in this act. Without faith, man cannot be justified, without grace, a man cannot have faith. That is why it is necessary to believe and hold to this doctrine. If a person does not believe this doctrine, the rest of their beliefs will be twisted and unbiblical.

Christianity has seen many attacks on the doctrine of justification, but it has prevailed victorious over the opposition becuase of it is grounded in the Scriptures alone. We must know that we ill be met with more opposition, the fight is not over yet, and we cannot be discouraged or frustrated by this fact. By God’s grace we will perservere.

 

Soli Deo Gloria,

Scotty





Video Blog- Coming Soon!

6 02 2009

Hey all,

I hope to be starting a video blog soon. They’ll be 5-10 minute videos on a bunch of topics and i’ll have some friends on with me every once and a while.

I’m not sure wether I’ll make a new blog specifically for videos or if I’ll just add them here, but they for sure will be on youtube.
So just keep checking in because they should start coming soon.

In Christ, by His Grace,
Scotty





The Vision of Our Founding Fathers

4 02 2009

Today we see that our government keeps growing larger while our rights as Christians and Americans diminish. This was not the original intent of our Founding Fathers. Just read the Constitution and you’ll see that the Federal government is meant to be smaller, protecting us as a nation and dealing with foreign relations, wihle State governments are left to be basically independant. But unfortunately, with socialistic and communistic ideas being pumped into our nations people, we are seeing an ideology that says, “Government is God and they should take care of us.”

And what are Christians doing during this time? The word “nothing” comes to mind. The masses of evangelical Christians are ignorant of the way our country was meant to be governed. And not only are they ignorant, they are buying into the lies that our pagan culture is propagating. Matthew 5:13-16 says that we are to be a salt and a light, so that God may be glorified. But walk into the average church and you’ll see people that look just like the world. Take it up another level and go into a seeker-sensitive, mega-church and you’ll find that they are actually trying to get unbelievers into their churches just to grow in numbers and not to show the love of Christ and wrath of God through the Gospel.

This all goes to say that we as Christians, who know the truth, should be more active and more knowledgeable than the average American. We must reawaken the vision our Founding Fathers had for this country, to be nation that propogated he Gospel to the nations, to proclaim Justice, to stand for Righteousness and to defend our God-given rights.

God Bless America and to Him be the Glory!

In Christ,
Scotty





Faith Leading to Action-Trust Leading to Obedience

30 01 2009


Luke 5:4-6 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.

What an amazing passage of scripture! We see one of Jesus’ apostles put his faith and trust in his Master even though all the odds were against him. R.J. Rushdoony stated in one of his many lectures on American History that faith provokes action and told his class that if they believed there were a thousand silver dollars on the lawn he would not be able to keep them inside. Why is this? Because faith, belief, leads to action. We see this fact vividly portrayed in Luke 5. peter had faith and put his trust in Christ, therfore he acted upon that faith and trust, resulting in an amazing miracle.

This also shows the providence, sovereignty and power of our Lord. Though we may have tried, like Peter, when our God intervenes, His purposes are fulfilled and He is glorified. There is a lesson in these Scriptures for all believers, that if we put our faith and trust in Christ, we must act on that faith and obey our Master and He will be glorified.

An important fact that I must point out though is this, He alone gets the glory. Not us. We don’t get glory for acting, but we are rewarded. We do not get glory for having faith, but we are rewarded with eternal life where we will eternally glorify Him. This takes humility, and God breaking our pride, because we naturally will not want to glorify Him. But by His grace, we will decrease in pride and He will increase in glory.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Scotty





The Power of the Word of God

28 01 2009

Hebrews 4:2 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Most religions have their writings. Muslims have their Koran, Mormons have the Book of Mormon, Jews have the Torah and the list goes on and on. But we Christians have the Bible, a book unlike all others. It is inspired, consistent, sufficent, powerful and able to, as Paul says, pierce the division between soul and spirit. No other book has that power, no other book contains God revelation to His chosen people.

Think into the times of the Reformation. The men who gave their lives for the translation of the Scriptures, men who suffered persecution, excommunication, rejection, ridicule and mockery for the sake of the Scriptures, it is to these men whom we owe the Bibles which we now posess. God soverignly moved through His people to free his true Church from the bonds of elitist, Roman-Catholic Church. It took courage for these men to risk their life, their families, their friends and so much more, to give us the Scriptures that we have today. Let us not take advantage of the fact that Bibles our sold all around the world and in thousands of languages, and let us not be ungrateful for our God’s svoerignty and power to impress upon his people, a desire for His Word.

The question I ask myself, and you, is this. Would we have done the same in their position? Would we have risked our lives to translate the Scriptures? Would we have risked public disgrace to make the Bible available for all men? I hope so.

In Christ, By His Grace,

Scotty





Arminians and the Tip of the Iceberg

28 01 2009

Think of an iceberg. What we see on the surface of the water is only ten percent of the whole iceberg, but under the surface of the water is the other ninety percent, a magnificently large, beautiful and seemingly indestructable mass of ice. In some ways, our doctrine can be compared to our vision of the iceberg. The more doctrine we comrehend, the more of God we comprehend. How does this apply to the Doctrines of Grace? Well, the Doctrines of Grace are such revealing truths, they reveal to us God’s soverignty, majesty, power grace and so much more, and they reveal them to us in ways that others cannot know if they do not hold to these truths.

As for the title of this blog, I mean that Arminians and the doctrines they hold to, show only the “tip of the iceberg”, so to speak. They cannot see God in the ways that a Calvinist can. They cannot understand God’s character in the ways that the Reformed Christian can. Does this mean that we who hold to the Reformed Doctrines are more spiritual than those who do not? Of course not. But the knowledge and comprehension of these truths are signs of spiritual maturity. The Scriptures speak of Christians being as infants (1 Pet. 2:2) , who should be moving on from “milk”, but only if the Lord wills(Heb. 6:3).

So let us be thankful for the truths that we hold to and that God has revealed Himself to us in such magnificent ways.

In Christ,
Scotty





On Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle-Why I No Longer Support Him

28 01 2009

Many of you may know of Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seatttle Washington, but for those of you who don’t know, here’s a little about him. Over the past few months Driscoll has been preaching through the book of Song of Solomon and many evangelicals have bashed Driscoll for preaching on the erotic and sexual subjects contained within the book. Due to these messages, Driscoll received many questions from the members (and non-members) of his congregation that would be considered private. Recently, a sexual question was posted Driscoll’s website which he responded to with a link to a website that, though claiming to be Christian, is also sexually graphic. Driscoll cautioned readers on going to the site due to its adult content, but the content could almost be said to be pornagraphic. Some people may not take issue with this, but I am greatly concerned.

Here are a few of my concerns.

1: Questions such as the those asked on the website should not even be posted publicly as they are private in nature and are innapropriate for all audiences.

2: For a Christian and especially a elder, to link to such a site shows a great lack in discernment and wisdom.

There are topics that should be left for private conversation, so I have no quam with people asking questions, but my problem is with a man in a position such as Driscoll, publicizing private matters. Also, he may be causing brothers and sisters to stumble by posting links to such sites.

Becuase of this, many evangelicals have claimed that all their suspicions about Driscoll were true. But I ask this: If Driscoll were to recant (For lack of a better word) and remove the links on his site, should we not as brothers and sisters in Christ receive him back? Yes we should.

Though I am dissapointed, this has taught me more and more not to put my trust in men, for they will always let you down. Only Christ, who reigns soverign over all things is worthy of our complete trust! No matter which man it is, wether it be Mark Driscoll, John Piper or even the President, he will fail. But our God is stronger than men and so much more worther of our praise and trust.

To God Be the Glory,

Scotty