A friend shared this video with me today.  It is based on a true story of a young man who went to Idi Amin’s Uganda to preach the gospel and was condemned to die by a firing squad for it.  As he faced his executioners he told them this:  ”I do not need to plead my own cause…I am a dead man already. My life is dead and hidden with Christ. It is your lives that are in danger, you are dead in your sins. I will pray to God that after you have killed me, He will spare you from eternal destruction.”

One of the most popular methods of instructing Christians in the church of the middle ages and the time of the Reformation was the Catechism.  The word “catechism” is from the Greek word which means “to instruct,” and they were written in question and answer form and memorized by believers. There were literally hundreds of catechisms written and many pastors wrote their own.  In the latter part of the 19^th century the great Baptist preacher Charles H. Spurgeon was especially fond of them and wrote one to instruct adults and another to teach the children of his congregation.  One of the most popular catechisms is the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563.  The first section is especially comforting and while re-reading it this week I thought you might find it illuminating as well as a comfort.

1. Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, wherefore by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him

One of the most sublime passages of Scripture in the entire Bible is found in the 17^th chapter of the Gospel of John.  Here is the “real” Lord’s Prayer, for it is the prayer that Jesus prayed before going to the cross.

John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, points out that when God speaks to men it is like baby talk.  What he means is that since God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55) when God talks with us it must be on a very elementary level.

Yet this prayer, that reveals an inter-Trinitarian communication, is very simple to understand.  The concepts are immensely profound but the phrases and sentences are simple.  Dr James M. Boice says that this probably reveals that it is because of our sin and spiritual lethargy, that God must speak to us in “baby talk.”

This prayer covers a number of the grand doctrines of the Christian faith.  It speaks of election, regeneration, sanctification and preservation.  It also reveals something of the intention of the atonement and of Christ’s great love for those first disciples and for those who would believe on Him because of their testimony.

For the next few weeks we will be looking at this prayer in our evening service at North Athens Baptist Church.  We would love for you to join us for this edifying study.

It has been almost one hundred years since New Testament scholar Dr. J. Gresham Machen wrote his book, Christianity and Liberalism.  In that magnificent work Dr Machen makes the case that “Christian liberalism” is a completely different religion, that is antithetical to Christianity.   The following is a quote from Machen’s chapter on Doctrine:

Christianity is based, then, upon an account of something that happened, and the Christian worker is primarily a witness.  But if so, it is rather important that the Christian worker should tell the truth.  When a man takes his seat upon the witness stand, it makes little difference what the cut of his coat is, or whether his sentences are nicely turned.  The important thing is that he tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  If we are to be truly Christians, then, it does make a vast difference what our teachings are, and it is by no means aside from the point to set ford: the teachings of Christianity in contrast with the teachings of the chief modern rival of Christianity.

The chief modern rival of Christianity is “liberalism.” An examination of the teachings of liberalism in comparison with those of Christianity will show that at every point the two movements are in direct opposition.

Dr Albert Mohler has written an interesting article about liberalism that shows that history confirms Machen’s evaluation of it in 1923.  The article can be found here.

Have American evangelicals lost all sense of biblical discernment?  The wildly popular book The Shack that has become one of the best selling religious books of recent memory would suggest so.  The book, though a work of fiction, is distinctly heretical in much of its teaching.  Read Dr Albert Mohler’s assessment of this book here.

Perspective is very important in life.  I remember one New Year’s eve many years ago when a group of my buddies and myself were griping and bemoaning our being stuck in a remote part of the world in southern Turkey.  We were in the United States Air Force stationed at Incirlik Air Base just outside of Adana.  It was far from home and we considered it to be at the “end of the world.” 

Later that same night we met two airmen from a remote radar site up in the rugged mountains of central Turkey.  They had come to Incirlik for R&R (rest and recreation).  They told us of their situation and we quickly concluded that compared to them we “had it made.”

It was all a matter of perspective.  I have thought about that this week in the furor of the University of Tennessee football coach leaving for greener pastures in Southern California.  It has been all over the news and from the comments left on blogs and Facebook has consumed the time and interest of millions of people, including me.

But again it is a matter of perspective.  Also in the news has been the devastating earthquake in Haiti.  This disaster is one of epic proportions and involves the suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands of some of the poorest people on earth.

When the two events are juxtaposed, the wanderings of a young man already immensely overpaid for the job he does, seems trivial at best. 

It is inevitable that as Christians we will get caught up in the affairs of this world but we must always keep our eyes on the eternal perspective and on what really matters.

NOTE:  This is a guest article written by Rev David R. Kerr, Assistant Pastor of the Burnaugh Baptist Church in Cattlesburg, Kentucky.

Tiger Woods , the Purpose of History, and the Message of Christmas

Christmas can be dangerous for Christians. I don’t mean the danger of putting up lights or the temptation to punch one of your relatives. Christmas can be dangerous because in our love for Christmas and our desire to see family we can forget what Christmas really is about. For many people, even Christian people, Christmas can become more about sentimentality and nostalgia than about Jesus Christ.  It has always struck me as odd that many non-believers have no trouble singing Christmas songs. I have often wondered why they seem to have no trouble belting out “Joy to the World” or “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” during the holiday season.  I think they sing not because they believe the words of the songs but because in singing they manage to conjure up the ghost of Christmas past, singing these songs reminds them of good times long ago. In this way the true message of Christmas becomes obscured by sentimentality and nostalgia.

I was reminded of the true meaning of Christmas in an odd place last week in the news of Tiger Wood’s sex scandal. Tiger Woods has for a long time been my favorite athlete. If the truth is known I have enjoyed watching a young African American male dominate a sport which has traditionally been played by rich white males. Tiger, for years, has appeared unstoppable maybe even superhuman. However, over the past week the world has discovered that he is in fact human.  We have found out over the past couple of weeks details of Tiger’s personal life that he had tried to keep private. The scandal is messy, shameful, ugly, and real.

With the revelation that one of my heroes was not who I thought I felt betrayed.  I found myself wondering how in the world Tiger could do such terrible things. Then I realized that what distinguishes me from Tiger Wood’s is the fact that he has money, fame, talent, and opportunity. The fact is that I am a desperately wicked sinner who is in need of God’s grace every day.  The Bible is clear that God in his great mercy has acted in history to deliver sinners like me and like Tiger Woods. He has done this in the sending of his Son Jesus Christ into the world in order to deliver us from this present evil age.

The Bible is clear that God is Sovereign over history. He created the world out of nothing and he perpetually sustains and cares for his creation. The flow of the Bible also tells us that history has a purpose. Though things may seem chaotic and disorderly God is in fact doing something in history. God’s purpose in history is glorifying himself through the redemption of a people.  This redemption is taking place through Jesus Christ.  The Bible tells us that “in the fullness of time God sent forth his Son” Gal. 4:4. God had so ordered events that at the time of Christ’s life a common language existed, a system of roads was in place, and relative peace existed in the empire.  All of these things happened by God’s plan in order to bring the Savior into the world and so that the Gospel would go forward.

The same chapter in Paul’s letter to the Galatians tells us the Christ was born of a woman, born under the law.  Two things here are note worthy. First the fact that Christ was born under the law. God’s law reveals his perfect holiness and righteousness. It also reveals the misery of humankind. We are unable and unwilling to keep God’s perfect law. Therefore we need someone who is able to keep God’s law for us. This is what Christ has done he has stood in our place as our substitute living the life that we could not live. He has done this in order to save us from the wrath of God.  The 2^nd noteworthy thing in this passage is the fact that Christ was “born of a woman.” We have a God who has entered into humanity with us therefore he is able to sympathize with us in our weakness because he was like us in every way yet without sin.

The message of Christmas is that God in his great mercy has entered into history.  He has done this for a specific purpose. The angel in the first chapter of Matthew told Joseph that he was to name the child Jesus because he would “save his people from their sins.” Because Christ has entered into history there is hope for sinful, stupid Southern Baptist Preachers and also for billionaire athletes. All those who recognize their sinfulness and utter helplessness find hope in the Christmas story. Hope not in anything that they have done but because the Sovereign God of history has sent his Son in order to redeem us from the wrath of a Holy God.  Joy at the Christmas season cannot be found in presents, trees, families, or sentimentality. Joy must be found in Jesus Christ alone,  in Him we hope!!

Soli Deo Gloria

This is an interesting article by Dr Albert Mohler about whether or not Americans are as pro choice as the mainstream media and cultural elites would have us think.  Read it here.

Do you like Christmas music?  Here is a beautiful rendition of an old Christmas classic.  Enjoy!