Currently Reading Exposition of Hebrews By John Owen see related

This morning and early pm Shelley and I went to the Mall of America.  It was fun to walk around the huge monstrosity.  We were probably the only ones who walked in and walked with exactly the same amount of merchandise!

The conference started tonight with an incredible time of praise.  Having a thousand or so people singing their lungs out, "Hallelujah What a Savior" is quite an experience.  Ajith Fernando from Sri Lanka.  He began a three point series on "The Death of a Pastor"

Some gems:

On our tendency to run from suffering:

If we are going to be conformed to the image of Christ, we will suffer.  Jesus suffered, and so to be made like him it necessitates suffering.

On learning in suffering:

There are secrets that can only be learned in the dark.  "Spoken by a woman growing blind".

The results of suffering:

Christians are like nails.  The harder you hit them the deeper they go.

On the use of hymns and Psalms during suffering:

Why I don't have words of praise of my own, I need to use someone elses.

Shelley and I are in snowy Minneapolis!  We came up for the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors.  This morning we went to Bethlehem and heard John Piper preach.  It was a great experience.  We really enjoyed the worship service.  They had a baby dedication, that was really moving.  I would like to think about doing such a service at home.

This afternoon it was fun just to walk around and talk with Shelley.  Part of the great benefit to the trip will be lots of visiting time with my wife.  Its worth driving 1400 miles just for that!  The conference starts tomorrow.  Its entitled "the Death of a Pastor".  It should be really great.  I will try to post tomorrow about some of the sessions.

Currently Listening The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe see related

I hope all of you had a good Christmas.  I'm preaching on Hebrews 4.12-13 and  am overwhelmed by the rich meaningful language the author uses to describe the work of the Word of God.  I read a sermon on this passage by Spurgeon and just had to share it.

I hope each of you are able to spend more time than normal with your family this season.  That certainly is my hope.

Enjoy!

It is a living and incorruptible seed.  It moves, it stirs itself, it lives, it communes with living men as a living Word.  Solomon saith concerning it, “When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.”  Have you never known what that means?  Why, the Book has wrestled with me; the Book has smitten me; the Book has comforted me; the Book has smiled on me; the Book has frowned on me; the Book has clasped my hand; the Book has warmed my heart. The Book weeps with me, and sings with me; it whispers to me, and it preaches to me; it maps my way, and holds up my goings; it was to me the young Man’s Best Companion, and it is still my Morning and Evening Chaplain.  It is a live Book:  all over alive; from its first chapter to its last word it is full of a strange, mystic, vitality, which makes it have pre-eminence over every other writing for every living child of God

Sermon 2010 pg 144

Hey All,

Due to some personal situations I have been experiencing lately, I have found these words pretty inspiring.  Hope they will be to you as well.

Henry Kissinger on Winston Churchhill. 

Our age finds it difficult to come to grips with figures like Winston Churchill.  The political leaders with whom we are familiar generally aspire to be superstars rather than heroes.  The distinction is crucial.  Superstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone.  Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see as their task to bring about.  Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of inner values.

The modern political leader rarely ventures to comment in public without having tested his views on focus groups, if indeed he does not derive them from a focus groups.  To a man like Churchill, the very concept of focus groups would have been unimaginable.

Thus in the space of a generation, Churchill, the quintessential hero, has been transformed from the mythic to the nearly incomprehensible.

Happy Tuesday!

I know everyone has been sitting on the edge of their seat for me to post.  Note:sarcasm is one of my spiritual gifts, it just comes so naturally   Actually sometimes I have a hard time allowing this to come to the top of the list.

Anyway, I'm doing two funerals this week, and was working on one when I found this quote on Heaven from my hero Chuck Spurgeon.  He is just one of many examples of men I know that just start out life with more gray matter than the rest of us.  I marvel at the way he is able to express a thought!  When I read him I wonder why I even try.  But I just have to think that if God used Balaam's Ass that there is hope for me! 

Anyway I thought you might like to have a little taste of Heaven tonight.  The verse he is preaching on is John 17.24

Enjoy!

I doubt not there are many joys in heaven which will amplify the grand joy with which are have just started; I feel confident that the meeting of departed friends, the society of apostles, prophets priests, and martyrs, will amplify the joy of the redeemed. But still the sun that will give them the greatest light to their joy, will be the fact that they are with Jesus Christ and behold his face. And now there may be other employments in heaven, but that mentioned in the text is the chief one, “That they may behold my glory.” O for the tongue of angel- O for the lip of Cherubim! for one moment to depict the mighty scenes which the Christian shall behold when he seeth the glory of his Master, Jesus Christ! Let us pass as in a panorama before your eyes the great scenes of glory which you shall behold after death. The moment the soul departs from this body, it will behold the glory of Christ. The glory of his person will he the first thing that will arrest our attention. There will he sit in the midst of the throne, and our eyes will first be caught with the glory of his appearance. Perhaps we shall be struck with astonishment. Is this the visage that was more marred than that of any man? Are these the hands that once rude iron tore? Is that the head that once was crowned with thorns. Oh, how shall our admiration rise, and rise, and rise to the

very highest pitch, when we shall see him the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. What! are those fire-darting eyes the very eyes that once wept over Jerusalem? Are those feet shod with sandals of light; the feet that once were torn by the flinty acres of the Holy Land? Is that the man, who scarred and bruised was carried to his tomb? Yes, ‘tis he. And that shall absorb our thoughts — the godhead and the manhood of Christ; the wondrous feet that he is God over all blessed for ever, and yet man, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh.

Oh, how will the Christian stop at the foot of his Master’s throne and look upward, and if there could be tears in heaven, tears of rich delight will roll down his cheeks when he looks and sees the man enthroned. “Oh,” saith he “I often used to sing on earth Crown him! crown him! crown him! King of Kings, and Lord of Lords!” And now I see him, up those hills of glorious light, my soul doth not dare to climb. There, there he sits! Dark with unsufferable light his skirts appear. Millions of angels bow themselves around him. The redeemed before his throne prostrate themselves with rapture. Ah! we shall not deliberate many moments but taking our crowns in our hands we shall help to swell that solemn pomp, and casting our crowns at his feet, we shall join the everlasting song, “Unto him that hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood, unto him be glory for ever and ever.” Can you imagine the magnificence of the Savior? Can you conceive how thrones and princes, principalities and powers, all wait at his beck and command?

Ye cannot tell how well the tiara of the universe doth fit his brow, or how the regal purple of all worlds doth gird his shoulders; but certain it is, from the highest heaven to the deepest hell, he is Lord of Lords — from the furthest east to the remotest west, he is master of all. The songs of all creatures find a focus in him. He is the grand reservoir of praise. All the rivers run into the sea, and all the hallelujahs come to him, for he is Lord of

all. Oh, this is heaven — it is all the heaven I wish, to see my Master exalted; for, this has often braced my loins when I have been weary, and often steeled my courage when I have been faint “The Lord also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, both of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth.”

Longing for Heaven with you.  Have a great Thanksgiving