Great Quotes: Spurgeon

"To be laughed at is no great hardship to me. I can delight in scoffs and jeers. Caricatures, lampoons, and slanders are my glory. But that you should turn from your own mercy, this is my sorrow. Spit on me, but, oh, repent! Laugh at me, but, oh, believe in my Master! Make my body as the dirt of the streets, but damn not your own souls!" ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Great Calvinists: Abraham Piper article

Sometimes I just get frustrated with some Calvinists, and in that see all in the same light, but thank God some are not just mean spirited cusses... Some are truly Desiring God.

Here is an excerpt from an article by Abraham Piper .



"There is a letter on Scot McKnight's blog from a pastor who is very frustrated with certain Calvinists in his church. It would be easy enough to disregard it, pointing out that not all Calvinists are like that or that his use of the word "hyper-Calvinist" doesn't match correct theological jargon. But that would be missing the point. And, ironically, that reaction would only lend credence to the frustration that motivated the letter in the first place."

Read the whole article here. Be a Kinder Calvinist

I for one was refreshed and blessed by this article.

iggy

John Calvin and Spurgeon on Alcohol.

Here is a little food for thought...

'And you shall bestow that money for whatsoever your soul lusts after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever your soul desires: and you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, and your household.' ~ John Calvin teaching on Deuteronomy 14:26

It seems Calvin was not against alcohol, rather preached moderation. It seems that when a "Calvinist" states that all alcohol is wrong he is at odds with Calvin himself. Even more so if Calvin had been a Southern Baptist... oh well!

For that matter Charles Spurgeon would not make a good Southern Baptist today either...

“I neither said nor implied that it was sinful to drink wine; nay, I said that, in and by itself, this might be done without blame. But I remarked that, if I knew that another would be led to take it by my example, and this would lead them on to further drinking, and even to intoxication, then I would not touch it.” ~ Charles Spurgeon


Such is appeasing the flesh with its rules "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? (Colossians 2:20-23)


Be blessed,
iggy

J.I Packer and the Five Basic Truths

Five basic truths, five foundation principles of the knowledge about God which Christians have, will determine our course throughout. They are as follows:


1. God has spoken to man, and the Bible is his Word, given to us to make us wise unto salvation.

2. God is Lord and King over his world; he rules all things for his own glory, displaying his perfections in all that he does, in order that men and angels may worship and adore him.

3. God is Savior, active in sovereign love through the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue believers from the guilt and power of sin, to adopt them as his children and to bless them accordingly.

4. God is triune; there are within the Godhead three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and the work of salvation is one in which all three act together, the Father purposing redemption, the Son securing it and the Spirit applying it.

5. Godliness means responding to God's revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God's Word. This, and nothing else, is true religion.

~ From Knowing God by J.I. Packer

Note that Packer is/was a Calvinist... and note number five that states "responding to God's revelation"... Makes me wonder what some of the "truth war" blogs and people that toss around "semi-pelagian" as a derogatory name might think... it sounds as if Packer is saying man must respond to be saved!

On a personal note here I agree with Packer, though I think that I have a different understanding of "obedience" than Packer does.

Be Blessed,

iggy

Spurgeon: The Liberal Emergent against War.

Spurgeon on War

"Whatsoever things are honest, true, kind, humane, and moral, may reckon our aid. WE are on the side of temperance, and therefore on the side of the limitation of the abominable traffic which is ruining our country; and we are opposed to all that licenses vice among men, or allows cruelty to animals. We are up to the hilt advocates of peace, and we earnestly war against war. I wish that Christian men would insist more and more on the unrighteousness of war, believing that Christianity means no sword, no cannon, no bloodshed, and that if a nation is driven to fight in its own defense, Christianity stands by to weep and to intervense as soon as possible, and not to join in the cruel shouts which celebrate an enemy's slaughter. Let us always be on the side of right. Today, then, my brethren, I beg you to join with me in seeking renewal. Now is the time for a man to buckle on his harness, and bestir himself.

---Charles Haddon Spurgeon, An All Around Ministry, "A New Departure", page 153.

Will the real James White please stand up?

In this bizarre fray with some in the Lordship Salvation camp... in which a emerging perosn who "does not beleive in truth" was arguing for a pure biblica view of truth and pointing out that many Christians have infused Platonist Realism and other modernistic views, I had unfortunately confused Jim W. with James R. White. He surprised me with a visit to my blog and commented on this article.

I did there and will once again apologize for that unfortunate mistake and also am very thankful that Jim W. is NOT James R. White. It seems that the real James White has a ton more class and can show much more grace.

So, James I do once again apologize for this and hope that you will accept my apology and any thing I did say to or about you in good spirit as I did not mean any malice toward you. As I stated to you I do not agree with you on some points, but in no way do I not consider you a brother in Christ. Noted again I am not a Calvinist yet I am not anti Calvinist.

James R. White made mention of this on his blog... so I am semi famous... again... LOL!

07/25/2007
On My "Issues" and Other Stuff James R. White
I fine-tuned my Google Blog Search gadget and got rid of all the references to basketball and politics. As a result, I found this article by "iggy" from Billings, Montana. Thankfully, iggy later admitted his error, and recognized that there might just be more than one person on the Internet with the initials JW, or "Jim W.," etc. If I'm going to comment on a blog somewhere, I will almost always identify myself with the signature (developed back in the 1980s for use on our BBS) of "James>>>" along with our website, www.aomin.org. If the comment system uses nicks instead of names, you will often see DrOakley or a variant thereof (my nick in our chat channel). For someone who makes himself so easily available, I have no reason to hide when commenting out there in the blogosphere, as rarely as I do that.

The rest of the article is here.

Thanks again James for your gracious spirit. Though like I mentioned before I would like to here your perspective on Lordship Salvation.

Blessings,
iggy