Links & Quotes

link quote

Here are the links to some interesting reading I found today.

Great news! U.S. Supreme Court Affirms Prayer At Government Meetings.

A sober word for pastors: “I fear that sometimes our own eloquence and our own concepts may get in the way, for the unlimited ability to talk endlessly about religion is a questionable blessing.” —A.W. Tozer

“The more of Heaven there is in our lives, the less of earth we shall covet.” —Charles Spurgeon 

Ladies, looking for a pro-life OB/GYN? Check out this directory.

Good: Why We Need To Start Taking The Sabbath Seriously.

Dr. Tony Evans on homosexuality, the church, and Christianity.

“When God causes us to have no mercy on our sins, then He has great mercy on us. When we are angry with evil, God is no more angry with us. When we multiply our efforts against iniquity, the Lord multiplies our blessings.” —Charles Spurgeon

Did someone say Islam was “a religion of peace”? Guess they forgot to tell these guys…

Links & Quotes

link quote

Here are the links to some interesting reading I found this weekend.

“The Holy Spirit does not belong to you. Are you charismatic? He is bigger than your signs and wonders event. Are you Reformed? He will not be limited by your theology.” —R.T. Kendall

“The worst thing that can happen to a man is to succeed before he is ready.” —Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Where is the outrage in the American mainstream media?! Kidnapped School Girls In Nigeria Sold As Child Brides.

It’s funny that many secularists believe that Christian myths about Jesus evolved over time until they were written down generations later. This is the thesis in Bart Ehrman’s latest book. It’s not accurate. It’s funny because there are things believed by some of the same secularists that actually are myths that evolved over time to create the impression that Christianity is a science stopper and anti-intellectual. One of these myths is about the scientific revolution that was purportedly initiated by Copernicus and the supposed subsequent opposition from the church to his heliocentric theories.” Read more of this eye-opening post: Copernicus And The Scientific Revolution.

Disney’s Peter Rummell shares how the Imagineers keep the great ideas coming.

“The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden— that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.” —C.S. Lewis

“When sin is pardoned, our greatest sorrow is ended, and our truest pleasure begins. Such is the joy which the Lord bestows upon His reconciled ones, that it overflows and fills all nature with delight. The material world has latent music in it, and a renewed heart knows how to bring it out and make it vocal.” —Charles Spurgeon

Counter Culture

Counter Culture [web]counter culture [koun-ter kuhl-cher] noun the culture and lifestyle of those people, especially among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.

What are the “dominant values and behavior” of today? Many Christians would say that what is “dominant” today appears to be those values and behavior counter to the teaching of the Bible. Can that be true?

If that is true, then how are Christians supposed to live? Are Christians supposed to adapt or modify what we believe to match the “dominant” behavior of the day?

Actually, I believe Christians are to live out a biblical worldview, and that doing so actually makes those Christians the ones who are living true counter culture lifestyles. It is that counter culture lifestyle which pleases God and attracts others to Him.

Join me this Sunday as we explore what the Bible teaches about being counter culture.

Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? (book review)

Did Jesus Rise From The DeadDr. William Lane Craig is a brilliant Christian apologist. Part of his brilliance is in the way he can make complex subject matters so accessible for everyone. This is fully on display in his book Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?

This book is a fairly quick read, but it is packed with powerful information. Point-by-point Dr. Craig leads us through the evidence for the empty tomb of Jesus, laying out all of the independently-corroborated evidence for Christ’s resurrection, and dismantling the arguments against His resurrection.

Next he lists several hypotheses—including the conspiracy hypothesis, the apparent death hypothesis, the displaced body hypothesis and the hallucination hypothesis—and gives us the criteria to analyze each of these hypotheses on our own. These criteria include the explanatory scope, the explanatory power, plausibility, less contrived theories, and the disconfirmation factors. Quite fascinating!

The book is well footnoted to give the reader ample sources to dig deeper on any of the points Dr. Craig covers. I could see this being an ideal book for those skeptical of the biblical claims of Christ’s resurrection, as well as a good study tool for Christians to prepare themselves to answer the objections others may have about the good news of Jesus being raised from the dead.

Links & Quotes

link quote

Some great reading I found today.

[AUDIO] This is a fascinating lecture from Dr. Glenn Sunshine on Christians in history who changed history.

“This day my God will perform all things for me; what can I do for Him? My thoughts ought to run to Him, for He thinketh upon me.” —Charles Spurgeon

This is appallingPro-abortion group declares bloody, mangled babies are “safe” for women.

“There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully ‘All will be saved.’ But my reason retorts, ‘Without their will, or with it?’ If I say ‘Without their will’ I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say ‘With their will,’ my reason replies ‘How if they will not give in?’ … The doors of Hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of Hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.” —C.S. Lewis

[VIDEO] A great way for Creationists to dialogue with evolutionists.

Links & Quotes

link quote

Some great reading from today.

“All of the advertising we can do will never equal the interest and participation in the things of God resulting from the gracious answers to the prayers of faith generated by the Holy Spirit.” —A.W. Tozer

“The state of the times extremely requires a fullness of the divine Spirit in ministers, and we ought to give ourselves no rest till we have obtained it. And in order to [do] this, I should think ministers, above all persons, ought to be much in secret prayer and fasting, and also much in praying and fasting one with another. It seems to me it would be becoming the circumstances of the present day, if ministers in a neighborhood would often meet together and spend days in fasting and fervent prayer among themselves, earnestly seeking for those extraordinary supplies of divine grace from heaven, that we need at this day.” —Jonathan Edwards

Why is the media not in an uproar over this?! Pakistani Girls Forced to Renounce Christianity And Marry Muslims

“There is a bond: He takes it and crosses it all out and hands it back to you, and says, ‘There is a full discharge, I have blotted it all out.’ So does the Lord deal with penitents. He has a book in which all your debts are written; but with the blood of Christ He crosses out the handwriting of ordinances which is there written against you. The bond is destroyed, and He will not demand payment for it again. The devil will sometimes insinuate to the contrary, as he did to Martin Luther. ‘Bring me the catalogue of my sins,’ said Luther; and he brought a scroll black and long. ‘Is that all?’ said Luther. ‘No,’ said the devil; and he brought yet another. ‘And now,’ said the heroic saint of God, ‘write at the foot of the scroll: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin.”’ That is a full discharge.” —Charles Spurgeon

Funny, but instructional, from Ken Davis: Five Super Powers Of Effective Leaders!

The Central Miracle

C.S. Lewis at his deskI recently re-read C.S. Lewis’ book Miracles (you can read my full book review by clicking here). As you may have noticed, after reading and reviewing books on this blog, I also like to share some quotes that caught my attention. Doing this with Lewis is difficult, because in order to get the context of a particular quote, I think I would have to cite almost a full page or more. So over the next few weeks I plan to share some quotes from Miracles that require not as much context, or I will provide a bit of background to set the stage.

Lewis talks a great deal about the Creator entering His creation, quoting from passages in the Bible that talk about Christ’s pre-existence before Time, and His choice to descend into Nature.

“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. … Everywhere the great enters the little—its power to do so is almost a test of its greatness. In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strongman stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden.”

For other quotes from this book see Miracle Or “Cheating”?Miracles And NatureChristianity And PantheismCorrecting The Pantheist, and Absolute Fact.

Counterculture Christian

I’ve been pondering these quotes for the past few days. They describe a view of Christianity that is biblical, but highly countercultural. What do you think?

C.H. Spurgeon“If we obey the Lord, He will compel our adversaries to see that His blessing rests upon us. … It is for saints to lead the way among men by holy influence: they are not to be the tail, to be dragged hither and thither by others. We must not yield to the spirit of the age, but compel the age to do homage to Christ.” —Charles Spurgeon


Tozer“I am Thy servant to do Thy will, and that will is sweeter to me than position or riches or fame and I choose it above all things on earth or in heaven.” —A.W. Tozer


C.S. Lewis at his desk“The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party, (b) a wedding, (c) a city, and (d) a concert. It would be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?” —C.S. Lewis

Links & Quotes

link quote

These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting today.

“Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.” —Westminster Confession

“Whenever fear comes in and makes us falter, we are in danger of falling into sin. Conceit is to be dreaded, but so is cowardice. … Fear to fear. Be afraid to be afraid. Your worst enemy is within your own bosom. Get to your knees and cry for help, and then rise up saying, ‘I will trust, and not be afraid.’” —Charles Spurgeon

[INFOGRAPHIC] Every Dream In The Bible

[VIDEO] What Babies Learn Before They’re Born

“Within the circles of evangelical Christianity itself there has arisen in the last few years dangerous and dismaying trends away from true Bible Christianity. A spirit has been introduced which is surely not the Spirit of Christ, methods employed which are wholly carnal, objectives adopted which have not one line of Scripture to support them, a level of conduct accepted which is practically identical with that of the world—and yet scarcely one voice has been raised in opposition.” —A.W. Tozer

[VIDEO] Very funny video from Ken Davis & Chonda Pierce about clueless husbands!

Links & Quotes

link quote

These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting this weekend.

Read this one prayerfully: Why Christian Supporters Of Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Are Wrong.

Some on-the-go missionaries explain How Technology Helps Our Marriage.

Continue to let your voice be heard to save Pastor Saaed from his wrongful imprisonment in Iran.

Amen! “The minister must experience what he would teach or he will find himself in the impossible position of trying to drive sheep. For this reason he should seek to cultivate his own heart before he attempts to preach to the hearts of others.” —A.W. Tozer

[VIDEO] John Maxwell explains why failure is not fatal.

[VIDEO] HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius proves why so many people don’t trust Washington, D.C.

Scientists show that the 5-Second Rule for food on the floor is legit!

“It is a mistake to think we must feel good before we pray; we need to pray most of all when we feel poor, and empty, and weak.” —Hannah Whitall Smith