If you’ve ever owned a car or a home, you know that deferred maintenance often leads to much more serious and expensive repairs. Doing ordinary, regular, and required maintenance can extend the life of a car or a house for many years. So it is with keeping our hearts. If in our work of surveillance we find that our hearts are growing cold or calloused, we need to make sure that we are doing the necessary upkeep to maintain the spiritual condition of the castle. Fortunately, the Lord has given us a way to ensure that our hearts are maintained. We call these things the ordinary means of grace, which include attending to the reading and preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and prayer….
Category: Spiritual Warfare
The Call of the Christian Soldier by Megan K. Taylor, Tabletalk Magazine
The article in this post is from Ligonier Ministries, Tabletalk magazine; it is about those things that entangle the Christian soldier. The author, Megan K. Taylor, uses examples of WWII propaganda, and worldly things around us that move us to crave the comforts of civilian life as opposed to getting out and staying on the Christian battle field; she also provided some ideas about dis-“entangling” oneself such as to rejoin the ranks of the active Christian soldiers
The Lies of the World — John MacArthur
In this post, John MacArthur identifies 8 lies upon which this culture is founded, then he clarifies them and provides the truth about each one per scripture. Highlight points are provided for those who don’t have 12 minutes to listen to his words.
Fearless in 2023 – Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon
Pastor Hines 39-minute sermon covers the following points: 1, Fear and all emotions are good, given by God; 2, When fear becomes sinful; 3, Resting in the comforting love of God; and 4, Love casts out fear. The concluding 10 minutes or so of his sermon was very moving and tied all his points together very meaningfully, it was about the Reverend David Brainerd. This sermon provides much encouragement to begin the fight anew in 2023! Sermon highlight bullet points have been written for you
God’s Purposes for taking His children through grief, loss, darkness…. Pastor Patrick Hines
The video in this post is a podcast of Pastor Patrick Hines wherein he addresses Christian suffering. He used the text of 1 Peter 1:3-9 and after a brief intro, talked about a Christian pastor who committed suicide, and near the end, he discussed a man who was tortured by Vladimir Lenin’s officers and imprisoned for more than a decade. The latter, grew immeasurably from his ordeal and was more used by God…. Much was said about each man and his response / reaction to afflictions sent by our Sovereign God. You can learn something from Pastor Hines teaching to deal with the afflictions God sends into your life. He discusses a couple of useful books in the podcast.
The Apostates’ Doom – A. W. Pink / Studies in the Scriptures / Christian Audio Books
A W Pink considers Hebrews 10:26-31 in discussing the apostate’s doom. He discusses how preachers had watered down that [and all] scripture in his day [he died in 1952]. They promised believers that if they had accepted Christ [signed a card; uttered the sinner’s prayer…] that their eternal future was secure…. He discussed a three erroneous takes on this passage by Arminians, over-zealous Calvinists; he called out the dispensationalists for “trifling with God’s word.” He aimed to present a biblical take on the passage and seemed to do so. It is an important message for all Christians in this day of far greater heresy and apostasy than in the 1950s. I recommend reading the preceding post on the impact of Christian Liberalism on the church before this post. Video is 43 minutes with a long list of highlights beforehand
The Decline of Protestant Christianity in the early 20th century has impacted you today
This post is a crash-course in the decline of the Christian church since the late 19th century. The purpose herein is to help you assess the quality of your own faith as you come understand the unbiblical impact of Christian Liberalism. The first two videos surround a figure of the Presbyterian church in the early 20th century, J Gresham Machen. [Although Machen was a Presbyterian, his fight against the unbiblical movement of Christian liberalism is relevant to the whole of Christianity.] Two posts from this blog are linked because they provide necessary information about unbiblical evangelism and C H Spurgeon’s fight against liberalism, narrated by John MacArthur.
Repent or Perish! – A. W. Pink
The following 5-minute devotional says much about repentance and the hindrances to it. The chief obstacle is self, which he addresses in a succinct but thorough manner. [One big problem of the Christian walk is learning to deny self. This culture has made that a huge problem because we are taught from childhood, by TV ads and by observing what the people around us value, that self-gratification is the height of personal freedom.] Sermon highlights precede the 5-minute video
America As The New Athens – Pastor Patrick Hines
The sermon of this post uses the apostle Paul’s speech to the Athenians from Acts 17, to explain our current culture and how we need to present the gospel message today. Pastor Hines explains that our culture is post-Christian and most do not know the basic historical foundational points of Christianity and believe, for example, that our worldview is only one option among many. [Many are becoming aware of what is happening in schools, how children are being indoctrinated into Pagan worldviews; but this type of indoctrination has been happening for 50 years or more in our culture, so many adults are unfamiliar with biblical truth that is essential to salvation and a correct understanding of themselves, God and purpose in living…. This sermon provides information that is as essential to Christians as R C Sproul’s dvd on the Christian Worldview.]