Dear Children and Grandchildren,

I have enjoyed the Word of God more than I ever have since I am no longer preaching 3 or 4 times a week and am not pressed for time. Some times I find things I'd like to share with all of you, or some of you individually. With your mother's encouragement I'd like to start a "Bible Blog" and share some of my thoughts with you. Last night I told Joanna that I opened a can of "Pork and Beans" for supper, (your mother is in Arizona helping Becky while Adam recuperates from a serious operation) but I found no pork so I renamed it "Beans and Beans". With a hearty laugh she wondered if I had "looked under every bean?' I trust what I send you will have some "pork" but if you find it to be only "beans" just push the delete button.

Ps.119:168 "I have kept Thy precepts and Thy testimonies: for all my ways are before Thee," As you were growing up one of the things I was careful to emphasize in our daily devotions was that the time would come when you would no longer be under the eye of Mom and Dad but you would never be out of sight of God's eye. What an encouragement we find here to keep God's Word. "all my ways are before Thee,"

"Experience makes many a paradox plain, and this is one. Before God we may be clear of open fault and yet at the same time mourn over a thousand heart-wanderings which need his restoring hand."--C.H. Spurgeon

"I may hide Thee from my eye, but not myself from Thine eye."--Wm. Gurnall

Friday, March 20, 2009

False Saviors

Dear Children,

Lately my thoughts have been drawn more and more toward the passage in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 where we are told there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. I always smile when I think of Dr. Bob Jones Sr. telling us that the “time to refrain from embracing” in verse 5 was while we are on the BJU campus.

The time I’ve been thinking of is in verse 2. “There is a time to be born and a time to die.” At 75 I am living on borrowed time—I have already passed my “three score and ten” by more than 5 years. Then my thoughts go to my children and grandchildren who will face difficulties unprecedented in the history of our country. I feel a great responsibility not only to pray for you but to exhort you to continue in the faith, for you must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). I am reading through a series of books by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the book of Acts. I want to quote from Victorious Christianity, Vol. 3, which was written at least 50 years ago.

Oh the ugliness and foulness that is in our perverted natures as the result of the fall. You can put in new houses, but they don’t change our natures, and we may turn our homes into pig sties. You can give us learning and knowledge, but that does not change the rot that is in the soul. You can give us wealth, but it does not make us new people….That is the story of the world’s vaunted civilization, its boasting, of its understanding and sophistication.

The world is always ready to believe in saviors; it is always ready to believe in emancipators and liberators and redeemers. Rome was ready to believe in the Caesars, France in Napoleon, Italy in Mussolini, Germany in Hitler, Russia in Stalin. And this is still as true today as it has ever been….Even in recent history, we have tended to turn men into gods. We have been ready to accept leaders at their own valuation….The world is eager to bow down before such men, and while it does, it rejects the One whom God has raised up to be the one and only Savior.

Look at those it is ready to worship, praise and follow. Listen to their arrogant boasting; look at the attitudes they strike as they address the populance. Our Lord put this perfectly: ‘I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye shall receive’ (John 5:43).

False saviors exalt themselves; they give themselves titles; they set themselves up on pedestals and build monuments and statues to themselves….They plaster cities and walls with their photographs….They have their “cheerleaders” to organize applause, to tell the people when to cheer and when to stop….Fancy fooling themselves to that extent! That is the mentality of the world.

This could have been written this week! I know this is long, but I implore you to read it carefully so you can understand better what you are facing.

Grace Be With All You Who Love Our Lord Jesus Christ in Sincerity,

Dad

Posted by at 9:43 PM

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