Bully's Blog

“Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were living in that nation, their faithfulness would not save anyone but themselves. …even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were living there, I, the Lord, promise that the children of these faithful men would also die. Only the three of them would be spared.” (Ezekiel 14:14, 20)

The mediation of even the holiest men would not avert God’s judgments. Noah had failed to prevent the destruction of the old world. Daniel had failed to prevent the destruction of the Land. Job had failed to prevent the destruction of his children. Like the three domains under these men, Jerusalem was beyond deliverance. And even if these holy watchmen were present in Jerusalem, they alone would be saved. These three only would be rescued from Sodom like Lot. In chapter 23, Ezekiel refers to Jerusalem as Sodom. Jerusalem the oppressor was also like Egypt. As the Land symbolically had four corners, four judgments would desolate it: sword, famine, beasts and pestilence, the Covenant curses from Leviticus 26. This was the Levitical sword indeed. The exiles, as watchmen, would see the repentance of the “marked” survivors and know that the Lord had not acted without cause.

When the Lord parted the Red Sea with His breath, He made the waters to stand up as walls. When He parted the overflowing Jordan for Joshua, He made the water stand up in a heap.

Revelation shows the crystal sea before His throne replaced by a crystal-walled city, the New Jerusalem. The overflowing waters of judgment were transformed into walls and gates by the Spirit of God. The bride city is now the entrance to the Promised Land. The city gates, the place of judgment, are open for the repentant.

Both the Red Sea and Jordan were doors of water and blood. They were two-edged flaming swords at the doorway to God.

Originally posted 27 September 2008

Rev Dr Malcolm Brown papers over the Grand Canyon at
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin/malcolmbrown.html

and CMI critiques his article at
Church of England apologises to Darwin
Anglican Church’s neo-Chamberlainite appeasement of secularism
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/6048

“… it is important to recognise that the anti-evolutionary fervour in some corners of the churches may be… an indictment of the churches’ failure to tell their own story – Jesus’s story – with conviction in a way which works with the grain of the world as God has revealed it to be, both through the Bible and in the work of scientists of Darwin’s calibre.”

Rev Dr Malcolm Brown (who looks like a nice man) surely must understand that the philosophy of evolution is exactly the reason for the decline of Christianity in the west, and the rejection of what he calls Jesus’ ‘story.’ It contradicts at a very fundamental level both the Old Testament and the obvious beliefs of Jesus Himself. A child can see that. I recommend the critique of Brown’s article and would be interested to see Brown’s response. Continue reading

[Posted by Gordon Cheng at www.solapanel.org]

I’ve appreciated reading the sermons of 19th-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon over the years, and have quoted him on my blog a number of times (not as much as the Pyromaniacs, but still a bit).

So when I came down with the flu and found myself in bed for three days straight, I thought it would be encouraging to pick up Arnold Dallimore’s short, well-researched biography of the man himself. Sick Calvinists of the world, unite. Spurgeon, so it happens, was a lot sicker than me for most of his life. He was seriously and often crippingly and painfully ill, both mentally (with depression) and physically, from his mid-30s until his death from illnesses at age 57. The same went for his wife Susannah who, because of chronic illness, was more often than not unable to attend the meetings where he preached.

If you haven’t ever read any Spurgeon, do yourself a favour and pick up a book of his sermons where you can, or click through on some of the links in the first paragraph of this post to get just a small taste for his straight-talking, gospel-centred style. Of his Calvinism, Dallimore quotes him (p. 67 of my 1991 Banner of Truth edition) saying

We only use the term ‘Calvinism’ for shortness. That doctrine we call ‘Calvinism’ did not spring from Calvin; we believe that it sprang from the great founder of all truth.

Spurgeon never received any formal theological training, although he’d begun reading Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs from the age of six, and progressed on to later Puritan writers such as John Owen and Richard Sibbes by the time he was 10.

Here are some other facts and figures I picked up on the way: Continue reading

Higher criticism’s rejection of the Bible’s chronology (followed by much of evangelicalism) robs Christians of some amazing facts. According to James Jordan, Joseph was sold by his brothers before the birth of Benjamin, and Isaac (the sacrifice) died a year before Joseph’s release from prison.

 

James B. Jordan, Reading the Bible (again) for the First Time (Audio series).

I live not far from one of Australia’s most popular tourist destinations, the Three Sisters. This rock formation overlooks a valley with spectacular sandstone cliffs. I climbed the Three Sisters a few years ago – when it was still legal!

Question is, is this valley the result of a little water over a lot of time, or a lot of water over relatively little time? If you look at the fine layers in the rocks, none of them shows any signs of being exposed for long before the next layer was put on top of it. No roots, burrows, etc. None of the disturbance by vegetation that you find at the top of the cliffs.

My friend, geologist Tas Walker, says:

Most visitors don’t realize they are looking at compelling evidence for the global Flood described in the Bible. The sandstone, of which the Sisters are made, points to huge watery deposition. The valleys and gorges, shaped when the Sisters were carved, are evidence of immense watery erosion. The Biblical global Flood explains this deposition and erosion…

You can read his full article here.

and make sure you check out his website, Biblical Geology.

“The French Revolution caused many Protestants to begin to consider whether there might be evils even worse than Roman Catholicism. Once it was clear that history had moved beyond the Papacy, many commentators shifted to a futurist approach to prophecy. They continued to roll all the bad characters in the Bible into one evil personage, this time not the Pope but some “Antichrist” who would appear in the future just before Jesus returns.

Few of these expositors seem to be able to resist the temptation to suggest, if not insist, that this “Antichrist” is due to appear shortly after their commentary is published. In this way, cultural bigotry has continued to inform most advocates of the futurist approach: The decline of European-American (nowadays called “Western”) civilization is identified as the final decline of Christendom and as a sign of the “last days.” The rest of the world does not count. Events in the Middle East and Europe are identified with Biblical prophecy and accorded status as signs of the end of the world. That this approach relegates the red, brown, black, and yellow peoples of the world to the status of historical non-entities does not seem to be noticed by the advocates of this unintentionally racist approach to predictive prophecy.”

James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall, p. 4.

Live More Than the Length of It

The life that Christ has called us into is a life that is not just everlasting in duration. The eternal life that He welcomes us into is qualitative. Jesus says that He is the resurrection and the life, and that life is one that the Holy Spirit weaves us into. This affects the texture and the breadth of our lives — or it is intended to. Our natural resistance to this is one the things that God deals with in us.

We want to walk with our heads down, as though we were walking along a railroad track, keeping our balance there, we don’t want to live expansively, the way a Christian ought to live. We forget that God is sovereign over all things, and we forget that He is the God of dangers, the God of adventures, the God of the unexpected. The wrong kind of concern for safety, for security, for a life of predictable and cozy conservatism is, at the end of the day, a form of idolatry.

Think of it this way. Remember this exhortation as you understand the tasks before you — your vocation, your family life, your worship of God. Everyone here will live the entire length of their lives. Everyone lives until their dying day. All of us go the appointed distance. But not all of us live the width of our lives.

Doug Wilson, www.dougwils.com

“Being in prison is not bad news . . . it’s the first stage of dominion.”

“Unity is a gift and a mandate.”

“Paul is a Trojan Horse for the gospel.”

“The support of the Spirit comes through the prayers of the people.”

“Paul saw his mission as making people joyful. This is the pastor’s job.”

Quotes from John Barach’s lectures on Philippians: http://auburnavenue.wordpress.com