Acts Sermon Series Interview Part 2

The Glory of the Ascension

"Hail the day that sees Him rise,
Ravished from our wistful eyes!
Christ, awhile to mortals given,
Re-ascends His native heaven.
There the glorious triumph waits,
Lift your heads, eternal gates!
Wide unfold the radiant scene,
Take the King of glory in!" Charles Wesley

"By the Ascension all the parts of life are brought together in the oneness of their common destination. By the Ascension Christ in His Humanity is brought close to every one of us, and the words “in Christ,” the very charter of our faith, gain a present power. By the Ascension we are encouraged to work beneath the surface of things to that which makes all things capable of consecration. Then it is that the last element in our confession as to Christ’s work speaks to our hearts. He is not only present with us as Ascended: He is active for us. We believe that He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; He the fount of Living Water, now ever lives to refresh us unto eternal life." Brooke Foss Westcott

"See, the Conqueror mounts in triumph,
See the King in royal state,
Riding on the clouds His chariot
To His heavenly palace-gate;
Hark, the choirs of angel voices
Joyful halleluiahs sing,
And the portals high are lifted,
To receive their heavenly King." William Wordsworth

Our Cottage in the Wood

"For our titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the old acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage in the wood, to which we can return at evening." G.K. Chesterton

The Acts of the Apostles

Beginning this Sunday at Parish we'll begin a new series in the Book of Acts--a series that will take us through the rest of 2013.

Litanies for Childermas

Deuteronomy 30:19; Proverbs 24:10-11; John 10:10; John 3:16

Pastor: Heaven and earth bear witness: the Lord has set before us life and death.

All: He has set before us blessing and cursing.

Pastor: Therefore, let us choose life that we and our covenant children after us may live.

Reader 1: If we faint in the day of adversity, our strength is small.  Deliver those who are drawn toward death, hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. 

Reader 2: If we say, "Surely we did not know this," does not He who weighs the heart and keeps our souls know it?

Pastor: Therefore, let us choose life.

Reader 3: The thief does not come except to kill, and to steal, and to destroy, but, Jesus has come that we may have life, and that we may have it more abundantly.

All: For God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Pastor: Therefore, let us choose life.

Psalm 139: 7-8, 13-18

Pastor: Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

All: For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Pastor: Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

All: My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Pastor: Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.

All: How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

Romans 3:13-18; Jeremiah 8:3; Proverbs 8:36; Psalm 145: 8

Pastor: Lord, we come confessing.  We confess that our throats are open graves.  Whether we realize it or not, we have chosen the way of death.

All: There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together we have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.

Pastor: All those who hate God, love death.

All: Our feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in our paths, and the path of peace have they not known.  There is no fear of God before our eyes.

Pastor: But, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Deo Gracias!

Adam lay i-bowndyn,

bowndyn in a bond,

Fowre thows and wynter

thowt he not to long.

And al was for an appil,

an appil that he tok.

As clerkes fyndyn wretyn

in here book.

Ne hadde the appil take ben,

the appil taken ben,

Ne hadde never our lady

a ben hevene quen.

Blyssid be the tyme

that appil take was!

Therefore we mown syngyn

Deo gracias!

Saviour of the Nations, Come

Ambrose (340-397) was the great bishop of Milan who was instrumental in the conversion of St. Augustine. In fact, there is evidence in one of Augustine's writings that substantiates Ambrose's authorship of a wonderful Advent hymn, Veni, Redemptor Gentium--indeed, he is credited with writing a goodly number of hymns and is sometimes referred to as the Father of Hymnody. This particular hymn has been traditionally sung during the vespers service of the Nativity on Christmas Eve. The great German Reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546) was instrumental in popularizing the hymn in Wittenburg through his 1524 translation from the Latin. The following version is an 1860 translation from Luther's German text by William Reynolds. Several other versions of this hymn exist, including a fine translation by John Mason Neale, Come, Thou Redeemer of the Earth.

Saviour of the nations, come,

Virgin's Son, make here thy home!

Marvel now, O heaven and earth,

That the Lord chose such a birth.

Not of flesh and blood the Son,

Offspring of the Holy One;

Born of Mary ever blest

God in flesh is manifest.

Wondrous birth! O wondrous Child

Of the virgin undefiled!

Though by all the world disowned,

Still to be in heaven enthroned.

From the Father forth he came

And returneth to the same,

Captive leading death and hell,

High the song of triumph swell!

Thou, the Father's only Son,

Hast o'er sin the victory won.

Boundless shall thy kingdom be;

When shall we its glories see?

Praise to God the Father sing,

Praise to God the Son, our King,

Praise to God the Spirit be

Ever and eternally.

Church Circus

"A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats." Charles Haddon Spurgeon

History Repeats: The Tron Church Debacle

"The Free Kirk, the Wee Kirk,
The Kirk without the Steeple."

"The Auld Kirk, the Cauld Kirk,
The Kirk without the People."

(A popular Scots rhyme at the time of 1843 Disruption)

Snopsing Chalmers on the "Gap Theory"

It is often asserted that the Scottish reformer, educator, and pastor, Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), was one of the originators of the so-called "Genesis Gap Theory" as a part of his effort to harmonize the ideas of evolution and creation. Scan the internet and you'll see this claim repeated again and again. Even many of the most reputable Intelligent Design or Creation Science sites perpetuate this peculiar notion.

It has no real substance however. Indeed, it is an "urban myth."

The actual origin of the "ruin-reconstruction" view of Creation comes from the writings of late 19th century writers like Hugh Miller, G.H. Pember, and I.T. Taylor. It was then popularized by early 20th century dispensationalists such as A.C. Dixon, A.J. Gordon, and H.A. Ironside. And it was particularly propounded in the best-selling study Bibles of Finis Dake and C.I. Scolfield. The theory asserts that some indeterminate amount of time elapsed between the first two verses of the Genesis narrative--this "gap" could then account for millions of years of geologic time or the fall of Satan or any number of other perceived textual difficulties.

There is no record of Chalmers endorsing this view--or anything like it. The notion that somehow he did comes from a single statement in a single lecture out of the more than fifty volumes of his writings.

This is what Chalmers actually said: “The detailed history of creation in the first chapter of Genesis begins at the middle of the second verse.”

Clearly, Chalmers posited no gap, no ruin and reconstruction, and no attempt to reconcile evolution and creation here. At most, he made a simple exegetical observation that Genesis 1:1 declares God's ex nihilo creation; Genesis 1:2a introduces the Spirit's moving amidst the material void; And Genesis 1:2b begins to unfold the details of that glorious moving and its resultant redolence.

Regardless, debates about the age of the earth and possible conflict with the historicity of the Bible would actually not come into common discourse until well after the death of Chalmers. Indeed, he made his isolated comment in 1816--long before Darwin ignited the controversy with the publication of "Origin of Species" in 1859.

Thomas Chalmers most assuredly wrestled with ways to find a common ground for scientists and theologians--his Astronomical Discourses (1817) were particularly effective examples of his apologetic methodology. But never would he compromise the integrity of Biblical truth for the sake of supposed scientific accommodation.

Leslie Printice: Pro-Life Pioneer

Leslie Printice was a young widow in New York City when she first became active in the pro-life movement.  A member of Gardiner Spring's congregation at the prominent Brick Presbyterian Church, she was encouraged by his sermons on child-killing to take a bold and active stand.  

She organized several meetings in her midtown Manhattan brownstone of doctors, lawyers, politicians, judges, and community leaders to hear the facts about the abortion trade.  Under the auspices of the church she set up the New York Parent and Child Committee.  The committee established prayer networks, sidewalk counseling shifts, and even alternative care programs with Christian doctors.  It also organized regular protests in front of Anna Lohman's five area abortion franchises--known professionally as Madame Restell, Lohman was the boldest, richest, and most visible child-killer.  

Tenacious and unrelenting, Leslie led a rally outside Lohman's lavish home on this day that was by turns emotional, physical, and fierce.  When Lohman went to trial for the first time the next year, Leslie was there--despite innumerable threats on her life from a number of the gangsters on Lohman's payroll--to testify with several children "saved from the butcher's knife."  

Nearly half a century later, her efforts were recognized in Albany by Governor Theodore Roosevelt as the primary catalyst for the state's tougher legislation and stiffer enforcement of protections for the essential right to life of all New Yorkers.

Adventide

"Advent is a season of preparation.  For centuries Christians have used the month prior to the celebration of Christ’s incarnation to ready their hearts and their homes for the great festival.  While we moderns tend to do a good bit of bustling about in the crowded hours between Thanksgiving and Christmas that hardly constitutes the kind of preparation Advent calls for.  Indeed, traditionally Advent has been a time of quiet introspection, personal examination, and repentance.  It is a time to slow down, to take stock of the things that matter the most, and to do a thorough inner housecleaning.  Advent is, as the ancient teaching of the church asserts, a time of fasting, prayer, confession, and reconciliation.  All the great Advent stories, hymns, customs, and rituals—from the medieval liturgical antiphons and Scrooge’s Christmas Carol to the lighting of Advent candles are attuned to this notion: that the best way to prepare for the coming of the Lord is to make straight His pathway in our hearts."   —From Christmas Spirit: The Joyous Carols, Stories, Feasts and Traditions of the Season by Greg Wilbur and George Grant

St. Andrew’s Day

Numbered among the Apostles, the brother of Simon Peter eventually became the revered patron of both Greece and Scotland where his feast day, November 30, remains a kind of national holiday.  Andrew (c. 10-60) may well have been, as tradition asserts, the founder of the church at the site of Constantinople, but he was most assuredly the great reconciler, as Scripture asserts.  As a result, his memory is celebrated by a day of forgiveness.  Services of reconciliation are often followed by a great feast of roasted or smoked beef, the telling of heroic tales, the reciting epic poetry, and the singing of great ballads.  King David of Scotland, son of Malcolm Canmore and Queen. Margaret, codified the day a national holiday in 1125—and so it has been ever since.

Spurgeon's Wisdom

The Wider Diameter of Light

"The wider a man's knowledge becomes, the deeper should be his humility; for the more he knows the more he sees of what remains unknown. The wider the diameter of light, the larger the circumference of darkness." Thomas Chalmers

"With every footstep of growing knowledge there ought to be a growing humility--that is the best guarantee both for a sound philosophy and a sound faith." Thomas Chalmers

Providential Working

‎"There is no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans.”  Corrie Ten Boom

What is Pulpit Freedom Sunday?

St. John's Wayside Chapel

Having failed to gain permission from the Glasgow Presbytery to plant a much needed new parish church in the city, Thomas Chalmers and the session of St. John’s Parish Church were grudgingly allowed to create a “chapel of ease” or a “wayside chapel” within the boundaries of their current parish district in 1822.

The spare and utilitarian building was designed by the renowned architect John Baird and had a capacity of about 300 worshippers.  It also contained a number of classrooms within which several community classes were conducted and a small parish school convened.

It was popularly known as the Potters Kirk, because of the large number of the congregation employed in that trade--the Annfield pottery factory was just across the Gallowgate.  Indeed, the church provided a remarkable cultural and spiritual hub for the blighted jumble of the industrial neighborhood. 

The small bell-tower originally carried a small spire, creating a much-needed landmark for the otherwise dreary community. But it was removed sometime just before the Disruption of 1843.

Following the Disruption, the remaining congregants applied for parish status and in 1846 it was renamed St. Thomas Parish Church.  But, the largest proportion of the members had followed their mentor, Chalmers, into the Free Kirk.  Eventually, the parish was recombined with St. John’s and the building became redundant.  The building was sold to the Wesleyan Methodists but the decline in the neighborhood brought even that enterprise to an end and the chapel closed its doors in 1973.  Derelict, the historic building was torn down in 1976 and replaced by a corner market and a fast food outlet.

St. John's Parish Church

The parish experiment of Thomas Chalmers in Glasgow had as its cultural center of gravity a remarkable architectural icon (see image above).

The foundation stone of St. John's Parish Church was laid in 1817 by Henry Monteith, Lord Provost of the city, and Chalmers, then the pastor of the city's prominent Tron Church. The building, situated at the end of MacFarlane Street fronted the Gallowgate, and was erected at a cost £9,000. With a capacity of nearly 1600 worshippers, it was one of the largest church buildings in Scotland, located in one of nation's poorest urban neighborhoods.

During its construction the foundations collapsed sparking fears that the 138-foot high Neo-Gothic tower would not be able to support the weight of the full compliment of bells which had been specially designed for the church--only St. Andrew's in Edinburgh could boast a complete "Ringing of the Bells" at the time. The defective design was quickly corrected and construction was not long delayed.

The facility provided a sanctuary for the worship for the St. John's congregation, of course.  But, it also created a tangible presence in the community for the congregation's reforming work, a hub for its evangelistic, educational, cultural, and mercy ministries.

The new church plant was launched by Chalmers, who had ministered in the city since 1815 and had become the most prominent voice of Evangelical and Reformed Christianity in Britain. His vision for St. John's was to create a "parish model" of ministry, similar to what the little villages of Fifeshire enjoyed, but right in the heart of the poorest, most densely populated, most industrialized section of the city. 

The new building was finally opened in 1819 and remained a vital part of Glasgow's Evangelical and Reformed renewal until the landmark was demolished in 1962 in a tragically ill-conceived "modernization" scheme (see image below).

A Most Unmanly Surrender

"I am afraid there has been a most unmanly surrender of Christianity and of all that strength and honor which belong to it, that so much authority has been given to the conceptions of a narrow and ignorant bigotry as to have laid open our religion to the scorn of philosophers, and to have brought down upon her the contempt and disgust of society; that in this way she has been associated with all that is mean and with all that is ignoble and has been looked upon as such a tame vulgar and unworthy thing, as to be totally unfit for a man of eloquence and of liberal illumination; ay, and when they cast their glance upon her, and see nothing in any of her features but the plain and the coarse and the ordinary, let us not wonder though it be a glance of hard and infidel disdain.  Are we, in truckling compliance with the humors of a baseless fanaticism, to strip away all learning and cultivation and eloquence as so many unseemly appendages?" Thomas Chalmers

Luther's "Defend Thy Christendom"

Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word;
Woo Thou all Doubters and murderous Turks 
Would wrest the Kingdom from Thy Son
And set at naught all He hath done.

Lord Jesus Christ, Thy power make known,
For Thou art Lord of lords alone;
Defend Thy Christendom that we
May evermore sing praise to Thee.

O Comforter of priceless worth.
Send peace and unity on earth.
Support us in our final strife
And lead us out of death to life. 

Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
Und steur des Papsts und Türken Mord,
Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
Wollen stürzen von deinem Thron!

Beweis dein' Macht, Herr Jesu Christ,
Der du Herr aller Herren bist;
Beschirm' dein' arme Christenheit,
Daß sie dich lob' in Ewigkeit!

Gott Heil'ger Geist, du Tröster wert,
Gib dein'm Volk ein'rlei Sinn auf Erd',
Steh bei uns in der letzten Not,
G'leit uns ins Leben aus dem Tod! 
     --Martin Luther

The Breath of Our Breathing

 "Prayer should be the breath of our breathing, the thought of our thinking, the soul of our feeling, the life of our living, the sound of our hearing, and the growth of our growing.  Prayer is length without end, width without bounds, height without top, and depth without bottom; illimitable in its breadth, exhaustless in height, fathomless in depths, and infinite in extension.  Oh, for determined men and women who will rise early and really burn for God.  Oh for a faith that will sweep into heaven with the early dawning of morning and have ships from a shoreless sea loaded in the soul's harbor ere the ordinary laborer has knocked the dew from the scythe or the lackluster has stirred from his bed." Homer W. Hodge

"We are constantly on a stretch to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church. So, the Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use--men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—faithful men of prayer."  E.M. Bounds

The Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

30 Days of Prayer

Please join with Christians all over the world in praying for our Muslim neighbors during the month of Ramadan, July 20-August 18.  Visit the 30 Days of Prayer site for daily prayer guides throughout the entire month.

Right and Wrong

"Right and wrong are defined by God, and not by mutual consent, or by feminine insecurities, or feminist compromises, or by masculine insecurities, or by zeitgeist-riddled cultural observers, or by evangelicals desperate to be accepted with the cool kids, or by chin-stroking, Bible-surrendering academics." Douglas Wilson

Just Weird

"God gives us a Francis Schaeffer and all too many of us grow up to act like Franky.  God gives us a Gordon Clark and we end up being like John Robbins.  God gives us a Dooyeweerd and we end up just being weird." Ben House

Spurgeon's "Lectures to My Students"

Promises, Promises

“His divine power has granted to us all things that we need for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and goodness, by which He has granted to us His very great and precious promises.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Picking Our Battles

"Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing.  That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat."  George Eliot 

The Lesser of Two Evils?

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894), theologian, editor, anthologist, biographer, and great-great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards
“Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.” 
“Credulity is belief in slight evidence, with no evidence, or against evidence.”
“Facts are God's arguments; we should be careful never to misunderstand or pervert them.”
“Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions.”
“Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.”
“Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end.”
“The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.”
“To rejoice in another's prosperity is to give content to your lot; to mitigate another's grief is to alleviate or dispel your own.”
“We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.”
“What we gave, we have; What we spent, we had; What we left, we lost.”