ouch

Thoughts on laziness: “ Does then the sluggard disappoint and provoke his earthly master ? See that we be not such sluggards to our heavenly Master. Laodicean professors are specially hateful in his sight ( Rev 3:16). The slothful minister carries in a tremendous account to him that has sent him. No more pitiable object is found, than the man who has time to spare; who has no object of commanding interest; and is going on to the end, as if he had spent his whole life in children’s play, and had lived for no useful purpose. He may probably have given out a portion of his time for some miscalled religious duty. But he might as well be asleep as on his knees; in idleness as in meditation – so little pains – so little heart is connected with his duties ! “ I found this phrase particularly pointed: ( No object of commanding interest, and is going on to the end, as if he had spent his whole life in children’s play and had lived for no useful purpose.) He continues: “ There is indeed no higher blessing than usefulness; no more affecting lamentation than that of the wornout labourer, who is conscious that his usefulness is ended. But the slothful is satisfied, that his usefulness should never begin. He is content with a life of utter uselessness. He willfully gives himself up to it; as if indolence was his supreme good, and every kind of exercise the object of his shrinking dread. Such a life can never approve itself to conscience, and assuredly will never escape the condemnation of God. It is poverty to himself. He becomes his own enemy. The springs of solid happiness are impoverished, and the true end of life frittered away. Let us look at the sluggard: time, talents, and opportunities have been given graciously to him, perhaps a godly education and every encouragement for hopefully promise. But if diligence is needed; if the man must labor and strive then his field must be left for the present time. He needs a little more sleep first. And thus he sleeps on, and shuts both eyes and ears against every disturbance of his fatal slumber. Nothing is done or attempted for God, for his own soul, or for his fellow creatures. His vineyard is left open. All his good purposes are the stone wall broken down. Satan goes out and comes in at will. All is devastation and ruin.” ( page 461) Charles Bridges ( commentary on Proverbs Banner of Truth publishing)

the race set before us

Run the race that is set before you

One of the ideas stuck in my head from years of listening to sermons is this one:

Regret is a form of unbelief. One of my weaknesses has been this tendency to look back at the past and think that the “old days” were better than these days ( an idea specifically prohibited in the book of Ecclesiastes). There is a glossing over the bad and remembering the good to the extent that I have difficulty being content in the “now.” The Lord has shown me this is sin because I am casting doubt on the goodness of His timing and questioning His leadership in my life. This came home to me in a new way when I was reading Hebrews 12 recently.

It goes like this: “ …let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” This truth landed on me in a new way and reminded me that I am not supposed to run the race that I ran in 2001 or in 2007. The Lord is calling all of us to run the race that is…. “ set before us.” We are to run this race with endurance and maybe one of the weights I need to drop is this idea of constantly regretting past decisions. This is such a paralyzing way to live and it robs a person of all joy in the present.

Therefore, if you find yourself saying…” why were the old days better than these ? “ , dismiss that idea as sin and move forward with your new station in life. Embrace Isaiah 43:18,19 which says:

Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it ? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

Jesus affirms this idea in Luke 9:62 But Jesus said to him, “ No one after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Even Paul recognized the need to exhort the Philippians: “ … but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on…” ( 3:13-14)

I thought that the Pixar film “ Up” was helpful in thinking through this as well. This man drags around his house most of the movie clinging to the memories of the past. Eventually he had to learn that it was time to “go have a new adventure.”

( He ends up dropping all the furniture out of the house too.)

Why does all this matter ? If I’m stuck in the past, then I will be ineffective for ministry in the present. I am not on this earth to reminisce about the “ good ol days,” but I am here to be God’s ambassador in the present. Time is running out for the world to repent of their sin and the fields are “white with harvest.” There is too much work to do to sit and wallow in self pity about things that “used to be.” How will I give an account to the Lord ( see Romans 14) for how I lived in 2011 ? What will my journal read Dec 31, 2011 … “ spent the year thinking about how I could have lived differently in 2009 ? “ Talk about a waste of time. I take seriously the Biblical idea that whether I live or die, I live to the Lord. I will have to give an answer for what I did with the time God gave me. I can’t see how it will be profitable for me to to tell the Lord someday: “ Well, here they are … here are all my regrets… I carried them for 40 years.” I am thankful for all the people that have been my friends over the years and I value the relationships that God has given me. At the same time, I have a strong desire to step into the “race” that is set before me right now.

Jeremiah 23:7
“ Therefore, behold the days are coming, “ declares the Lord, “ when they will no longer say, ‘ As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt’,

8 but ‘ As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’

Then they will live on their own soil.”

quite a vocabulary

This is from an essay by Edwards on the excellency of Jesus Christ. He was writing about how Jesus is a perfect mingling of attributes. The idea being that Jesus is both lion and lamb, powerful and meek at the same time.



“Such a conjunction of infinite highness and low condescension, in the same person is admirable. We see, by manifold instances, what a tendency a high station has in men, to make them to be of a quite contrary disposition. If one worm be a little exalted above another, by having more dust, or a bigger dunghill, how much does he make of himself ! What a distance does he keep from those that are below him ! And a little condescension is what he expects should be made much of, and greatly acknowledged. Christ condescends to wash our feet; but how would great men, ( or rather bigger worms), account themselves debased by acts of far less condescension !”

Jonathan Edwards page 681 “Works of Edwards”

why our culture goes to the movies

It is very difficult to go into Blockbuster these days. The amount of disturbing images on the covers of the DVDs is shocking and revolting at the same time. I sometimes wonder what will be next. How much worse can it get ? I am sure people in the 1950's asked the same questions. I found this section in a book by John Stott and thought it might give us a clue.




“Until our sins are forgiven, we are exiles, far from our true home. We have no communion with God. In Biblical terms we are ‘lost’, or ‘dead’ through trespasses and sins which we have committed.

It is this that accounts for the restlessness of men and women today. There is a hunger in the heart of man which none but God can satisfy, an empty space which only God can fill. The demand for sensational news in the press and for extravagant love or crime stories in the movies; pools and pubs; the dirt track and the dog track ( or football stadiums); the current epidemic of drugs, sex and violence --- -all these are symptoms of man’s search for satisfaction.”

Augustine said concerning God: “ You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”


Taken from Basic Christianity John Stott page 74-75

Stop regarding man

I think this has appeared before on this site, but it's worth revisiting.

The idea has to do with Romans 12 where Paul states that we shouldn't think too highly of ourselves. I like the way G.K. Chesterton states it :

" Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business ? How much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you ! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiousity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and virile indifference ! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theater in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street fully of splendid strangers."

( page 15 Orthodoxy)

I think these ideas give us a perspective and echo what the Bible says in Isaiah 2:22: "Stop regarding man, whose life is in his nose. Why should he be esteemed ? "

how do you start a revival ?

The short answer is that you can’t start one. I picked up a copy of Revival and Revivalism by Iain Murray and have been working my way through it. One of the chapters started out painfully slow with all the statistics of congregational growth among the denominations in the early 1800’s but then the author started to reflect on what brought about revival. I thought his discoveries were very helpful and could be of benefit to the church today. Here are a few thoughts:

“ Thus what characterizes a revival is not the employment of unusual or special means but rather the extraordinary degree of blessing attending the normal means of grace. There were no unusual evangelistic meetings, no special arrangements, no announcements of pending revivals. Pastors were simply continuing in the services they had conducted for many years when the great change began.
( Page 129 Revival and Revivalism Iain Murray)

Later he talks about prayer and I thought this was very interesting:

“ As with the truth that is preached, prayer has no power inherent in itself. On the contrary, true prayer is bound up with a persuasion of our inability and our complete dependence on God. Prayer, considered as a human activity, whether offered by few or by many, can guarantee no results. But prayer that throws believers in heartfelt need on God, with true concern for the salvation of sinners, will not go unanswered. Prayer of this kind precedes blessing, not because of any necessary cause and effect, but because such prayer secures an acknowledgment of the true Author of the blessing. And where such a spirit of prayer exists it is a sign that God is already intervening to advance His cause. One thing that can be said with certainty about the 1790’s, before any general indications of a new era were to be seen, is that there was a growing concern among Christians to pray. “ ( page 129 ibid )

Revival and Revivalism

There's a period of my life that I look back on with fond memories. In 1995 I had the opportunity to be a part of Lake Cities Bible Church in Lake Dallas, Texas and our pastor's name was David Kunz. We were going through seminary at the time and what I remember was the reading group that met weekly to discuss different books. We read things like John Owen's Sin and Temptation and Don Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian life. This season of my life was my introduction to Banner of Truth publishing and I specifically remember David saying ( of that publisher): " they don't print junk." As a result, whenever I'm in a used book store I usually look at the publisher and author rather than the title as I walk through the shelves. One book I have never seen in a used book store is Revival and Revivalism by Iain Murray, so to own a copy I had to look to the publisher. I can tell you that I have no regrets. The vocabulary is challenging at times, but anything meaningful usually requires an effort. I was reading about the history of the Baptists around the time of the revolutionary war and came across this quote from Robert Semple who was 14 years old at the time of the war. He said:

"The war, though very propitious to the liberty of the Baptists, had an opposite effect upon the life of religion among them. As if persecution was more favorable to vital piety than unrestrained liberty, they seem to have abated in their zeal, upon being unshackled from their manacles. This may be ascribed to several causes... Perhaps many did not rightly estimate the true source of liberty, nor ascribe its attainment to the proper arm. In consequence of which God sent them liberty, and with it leanness of soul. This chill to their religious affections might have subsided with the war, or perhaps sooner, if there had not been subsequent occurrences which tended to keep them down. The opening of a free trade by peace served as a powerful bait to entrap professors who were in any great degree inclined to the pursuit of wealth. Nothing is more common than for the increase of riches to produce a decrease of piety. Speculators seldom make warm Christians. With some few exceptions the declension was general throughout the State. The love of many waxed cold. Some of the watchmen fell, others stumbled, and many slumbered at their posts. "

I'm not saying he was 14 when he wrote those words but he was 14 during the war. These comments are his reflections years after the war. The sentence in that quote that grabbed my attention was this one: " Nothing is more common than for the increase of riches to produce a decrease of piety." This really makes me think about how money affects our spiritual life. Sometimes, when we are "well fed" it tends to make us spiritually lethargic, so what do you do if you happen to have a lot of money ?

I would think that part of the answer would be to give generously and share. Keep putting yourself in a place of dependence on God. If you are in debt, you should pay off that debt, but then get to the place where you are giving sacrificially. The Bible affirms that the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil. How can you avoid falling in love with money ? I find things in myself that I despise when it comes to thinking about money. Greed has walked through my mind more often than I care to admit and it has this tendency to take over and control and connive for more and more money. There's a phrase from the book of Jeremiah that bothers me : "they were well fed lusty stallions." Biblically speaking, when we are full of the world, it dulls our spiritual appetite. How can you avoid this condition ?


1. Remember that wealth spreads wings and flies away. ( Prov 23)

2. The rich man and his pursuits will fade away. ( James 1)

3. We brought nothing into the world ... and we will leave the world with nothing. ( I Tim 6)

4. The desire for riches is a snare and can often cause people to shipwreck their faith.

5. Men have plunged into ruin and destruction because of money. ( Enron)

6. The love of it is a root of all sorts of evil.

7. People have been pierced with many griefs longing after money.

8. Alot of money can make you conceited if you are not guarded about it.

9. Here on the earth, our "treasures" can rust and be eaten by moths...

10. Our treasure is related to the condition of our heart. They are vitally connected.


When the Baptists in the 1700's were set free from British rule, their spiritual life declined because they shifted their dependence from God to money. Don't follow their example.
If you are poor right now, James says you should glory in your high position. However, if you are rich, beware of the fact that an increase in riches often leads to a spiritual decline.