You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!

Never forget that salvation belongs to the LORD. It is His work. Pray for a great harvest. Pray to be used of Him in that harvest. Then watch to see how He will work.

THE CERTAINTY OF THE WORLD’S CONVERSION.
BY REV. J. L. WILSON,
Missionary at the Gaboon, W. Africa.

[excerpted from The Southern Presbyterian Review, vol. 2, no. 3 (December 1848): 427-441.]

 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”  This stern declaration wrung from the disciples of Christ the earnest inquiry, “Who then can be saved?” To this the Saviour replies, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

In this reply, there is no abatement of the real difficulties of being saved.  The impressions of the disciples, on this particular point, were correct, and no effort is made to change or remove them.  The kingdom of heaven, if taken at all, must be taken by violence, and none but the violent shall ever enter.  It has a straight gate and a narrow way; and it is only those who enter the one and walk in the other that shall ever attain to everlasting life.  The immu­table terms of discipleship are, that we must take up our crosses and follow Christ, through evil as well as good report. Those who shine in the upper courts with most lustre, are those who have come out of great tribulation and made their garments white in the blood of the Lamb.

The impressions of the disciples, therefore, are rather confirmed than removed.  According to their previous views, and those of the young man with whom the Saviour had just been conversing, it was not possible to be saved. Both were indulging fundamental errors on the most important of all subjects, and it was essential to their salva­tion that those errors should be corrected.

But whilst the foundation upon which they were standing is thus torn away, they are not given over to despair.  A surer and better way is pointed out.  That which they could never attain by their own exertions or morality, can easily be effected by the grace of God.  In other words, what is impossible with men is possible with God.  What we can never effect by our own unaided efforts, may easily be achieved by throwing ourselves upon the almighty power of Jehovah.

This doctrine accords with the experience of Christians in all ages of the world.  There is no lesson more thoroughly taught in the school of Christ than this.  Chris­tians who have had even but little experience, are fully aware that they can make no advances in holiness, except so far as they are aided from on high.  A clear view of the number and power of their spiritual enemies, if not attended by equally clear views of the all sufficiency of divine grace, never fails to awaken apprehensions about their final salvation; whilst a lively appreciation of the promises and assurances of the Bible, and right apprehen­sions of the power of God, as seldom fail to inspire them with courage and resolution.

Nor is this principle of dependence upon God, more important or indispensable in our personal conflicts with sin, than it is in every enterprise in which we engage for the benefit of others.  “Without me,” says the Saviour, “ye can do nothing.”  But then again it is said with equal emphasis, “I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.”

Guided by this principle of dependence, there is no enterprise, however great or difficult, provided it is in accordance with the Divine will, upon which we may not enter with confident assurance of success.  It matters not what human probabilities may be arrayed against it,—it matters not what disproportion there may be between the means and the end to be effected,—it matters equally little whether we are able or not to trace all the intermediate steps by which it is to be brought about,—nor are we to be discouraged or intimidated because unforeseen difficulties rise and threaten to frustrate our work.  It is enough for us to know that we are engaged in a cause that has been authorised by God, and that we pursue it in a manner that he approves.  Having settled these fundamental principles, we may press forward in any good work, with confidence that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord.

These general remarks have been made for the pur­pose of introducing our general subject, the certainty of the world’s conversion.

There are multitudes in the Christian church, at the present moment, who are pressed with difficulties in relation to this matter, not unlike those which the disciples once felt in relation to the salvation of their own soul.  And who is there among us, Christian hearers, who does not in some measure, at least, participate in feeling these difficulties.

No doubts are entertained in relation to what the Bible teaches on this subject.  The mass of Christians believe, or profess to believe, that “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God.”  But the overwhelming magnitude of the work fills the mind with doubts and skepticism, and leads many to abandon the missionary cause, as a visionary and hopeless work. Read the rest of this entry »

Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?

The following account comes from a history of the Fairfield Presbyterian Church, Fairton, New Jersey. What is now a PCA church was originally organized in 1680, making it the oldest of our PCA congregations. Here, a church discipline case from the late 19th-century is recounted in the history of that church.

Words to Live By:

1. Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? 
2. Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? 
3. Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 
4. So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? 
5. I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren,
6. but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? 
7. Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 
8. On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren.
—I Corinthians 6:1-8, NASB.

Sharing  Faith by Word and Deed

Everyone has heard of the name John Wanamaker, especially those in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That is where this retail giant began his department stores at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861.  But everyone may not know that John Wanamaker was a devout Presbyterian who shared his wealth and his Christian faith by word and deed.

Born on this day July 11, 1838, he began to work as an errand boy and shopkeeper’s helper.  At age 18, he became a Christian and began to attend Sunday School and church.  His congregation was Bethany Presbyterian church in Philadelphia.  In fact, at twenty-five, he was ordained as a ruling elder in the church.

He had some ideas which were unorthodox in the retail marketing field.  Using four principles, which were honesty, a fixed price for goods, a money back guarantee, and happy contented employees, he thought (and thought rightly) that customers would come. Workers were given free medical care, free education, recreational facilities, pensions, and profit-sharing plans. No wonder that unions could not get a foothold in his stores.

As his businesses grew with more and more stores in more than one city, he began to give large portions of his wealth to religious and moral causes.  The Young Man’s Christian Association and the Sunday School movement were among those receiving large support. He said once “I cannot too greatly emphasize the important and value of Bible study — more important than ever before in these days of uncertainties, when men and women are apt to decide questions from the standpoint of expediency rather than the eternal principles laid down by God Himself.

Words to Live By: When you consider the last sentence about Bible study, we might think that he had made it in the current year in which we find ourselves instead of back in the late 1800’s.  But a faith and life lived in the light of God’s Word the Bible makes everything relevant to every age.  Bible study still has its place in every believer’s life walk.  Buy a faithful Bible study, like the Reformation Study Bible, with a good biblical commentary, like Matthew Henry, and (oh yes) a notebook to record what the Spirit reveals to you through His Word, follow everything up with prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplications (A.C.T.S), and you will be able to decide questions from the standpoint of God Himself.

My apologies for the very late delivery of today’s post. To make matters somewhat worse, this post is out of order and should have appeared next week, but for the fact that the text for Question #90 is unavailable to me at the moment. I expect to present that Question next week.

STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM

Our guest author, Dr. David W. Hall, returns today with another installment in his series on Election Day Sermons. Dr. Hall has served as senior pastor of the Midway Presbyterian Church of Powder Springs, Georgia since 2003, and prior to that was pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1984-2002. He was educated at Memphis State University, graduating there with the B.A. degree in 1975 and prepared for the ministry at Covenant Theological Seminary, receiving the M.Div. degree in 1980. Whitfield Theological Seminary awarded him a Ph.D. in 2002. A prolific author, he has written well over twenty books. 

“An Oration in Commemoration of the Independence of The United States of America”
by Enos Hitchcock (July 4, 1793)

Enos Hitchcock (1744-1803) was a Harvard graduate (1767) and a chaplain for several brigades in the Colonial militia (seeing battle at Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Valley Forge, and West Point). He also served as chaplain of the Continental Army from 1779-1780. He preached in other New England churches after the Revolutionary War, prior to settling as the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1783 until his death. During his pastorate, the church grew and built an impressive church in 1794-75 at the corner of Benefit and Benevolent streets. Later his church which was Arminian under his leadership became Unitarian, shortly after his time.

Among his other fiery sermons was a 1780 sermon accusing Benedict Arnold of ‘perfidy” (see: https://rihs.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/a-perfidious-wretch-hitchcocks-sermon-on-arnolds-treason/). He was involved in various causes, ranging from education to abolition, even purchasing a slave but manumitting him in his will. His diaries were published in 1899 and are available at: https://archive.org/details/diaryofenoshitch00hitc.

Hitchcock delivered this anniversary sermon seventeen years after the Declaration of Independence in a Baptist church, preaching this on the same day as Samuel Miller’s sermon on the anniversary of America’s Independence (see link to previous sermon). However, he begins with a passage from the Declaration rather than from Scripture. He believed the providential wonders seen here were also of benefit to all mankind. This sermon celebrated the birth day of a nation, born “when your country was bleeding at every pore, without a friend among the nations of the earth. God alone was her friend! The justice of her cause was registered in the high chancery of heaven. The stars fought in their courses for her; and the event justified a step which had so astonished the world.”

This great land bore tremendous promise for industry, agriculture, and development—surely, he preached, the providential blessing of God. To match these natural resources, Hitchcock also noted: “The features of our policy have a strong resemblance to the magnificent and well-proportioned features of our country. No longer do we subscribe to the absurd doctrine of the divine right of kings, no longer bow our necks to the galling yoke of foreign legislation. Independent of these servilities, we enjoy the divine right of governing ourselves.” He was a thorough-going republican who detested absolute power, anarchy, and tyranny. He reflected the wisdom of the day: “Every good government must exist somewhere between absolute despotism and absolute democracy. In either of these extremes, neither liberty nor safety can be enjoyed.”

He also thought it self-evident that: “The state where the people choose their magistrates for a fixed period, and often assemble to exercise the sovereignty, is a democracy, and is called a republic; such were Athens and Rome, and such are the United States of America.” He saw the republicanism of America as a moderate form, which “was most congenial to the rights of man, and the enjoyment of equal liberty—that liberty, which to independence unites security—which to the most ample elective powers, unites strength and energy in government.”

Hitchcock also realized the imperfection of governments and the need for virtue among the electors: “The most perfect model of government that imagination can form will be useless, if the state of mankind renders it impracticable.” He rendered a quite glowing assessment of the office-holders in all branches as satisfying the high demands of representative government.  He also spied “American genius springing forward in useful arts, projecting great and astonishing enterprizes, tearing down mountains and filling up vallies, and making efforts unknown in those countries where despotism renders everything precarious, and where a tyrant reaps what slaves have sown.”

Not every revolution would automatically advance liberty: “Indeed a dark cloud at present vails the fair countenance of liberty in France. Inexperienced in the science of a free government, and unprepared for the enjoyment of it by a previous course of education, of intellectual improvement, and moral discipline, they have tarnished their glory by excesses; and, in the paroxysms of their zeal, have carried excess to outrage.”

He preached that “Knowledge and true religion go hand in hand. When the former is obscured, the latter is mutilated, and enveloped in the shades of superstition and bigotry. And whenever the civil power has undertaken to judge and decide concerning truth and error, to oppose the one, while it protected the other, it has invariably supported bigotry, superstition and nonsense.”

In contrast to Miller’s sermon from last week, this one seldom refers to biblical texts. His sermon concluded:

May we ever show ourselves worthy of the blessings we enjoy, and never tarnish the bright lustre of this day, by any unbecoming excesses. Americans! think of the many privileges which distinguish your condition. Be grateful for your lot; and let your virtue secure what your valour, under God, hath obtained; and transmit to latest posterity the glorious inheritance. May the political edifice erected on the theatre of this new world, afford a practical lesson of liberty to mankind, and become in an eminent degree the model of that glorious temple of universal liberty which is about to be established over the civilized world.

This sermon may be found online at: http://consource.org/document/an-oration-in-commemoration-of-the-independence-of-the-united-states-of-america-by-enos-hitchcock-1793-7-4/.

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

For others like this order a copy of Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting from Reformation Heritage Books.