Alistair Begg can get a bit highbrow at times, but he never leaves you there. He brings it all home -- ringing with scriptural integrity, clarity, and practical application. This message, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, is an excellent example. Dive in. |
Ian Garrett is one of my favourite speakers on Clayton TV. He is true to scripture, but he always addresses his listeners with gentleness and respect. Here is a message he preached recently about how a person may go from being judged by God to justified by God. I confess that this message is in some ways hard for me -- much of it goes directly against the way I was raised to think; I still struggle with this. Yet if we think we can face God on our terms, we are sadly mistaken. Happily, God has provided a way we can face Him -- and even know Him -- on His terms. Jesus is that way.
"Trusting in the cross" Ian Garrett Jesmond Parish Church, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Please note: there is a brief audio glitch about 28 minutes in -- the sound should resume after no more than about a minute; clicking the video's volume control may or may not help bring it back more quickly (i.e. I did this and the problem stopped, but it may have been going to stop anyway ;) ). (The video may work best on high definition -- to enable this, click the HD button next to the video's volume control.) Earlier this year, I learned about Clayton TV, a site that posts sermons and other talks from various evangelical churches in Britain. The sermon I've linked to below is a beautiful, gentle message explaining why we need Jesus. It's so clear and so respectfully presented, it would be a wonderful introductory gospel message for those who have doubts, yet it's also an important reminder for all of us about Jesus' lordship and His forgiveness.
If the video stops unexpectedly in one or two spots, try clicking the little "HD" button. A dear friend recently loaned me a biography of Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), one of the earliest missionary pioneers to China. It's no coincidence that God has me reading this book right now. Through Hudson Taylor's insights, I see that the critical issues He's been tackling in me recently are the symptom of a much deeper underlying work He wishes to do. I read and re-read this letter Hudson Taylor wrote to one of his sisters, which appears in the biography I'm reading but has also been reproduced online*: "The Exchanged Life" On my second and third readings of this letter, I became increasingly frustrated to read about Hudson Taylor's immediate grasp of the principles God revealed to him. Perhaps because we live in an information-oversaturated age, I can read the very same words he did and not be transformed in the way he was. It helped a great deal, therefore, to read the letters Taylor subsequently wrote to his children (at school in England) and to another sister, in which he expounds on these truths in plainer, but profound, terms: From a letter to his children**:
From a letter to another sister***:
This is part of a new beginning for me. It's not yet the reality of my everyday walk, but one day, before too long, I believe it will be. I have prayed God to make it plain to me, and to help me so to trust in Jesus.
_______________ Sources: * Found on the "Wholesome Words" website, under Worldwide Missions -- Missionary Biographies -- James Hudson Taylor -- The Exchanged Life. ** From page 181 of Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor (Howard and Geraldine Taylor), Chicago: Moody Press, 2009. (First published in 1932) *** From page 182 of the same book "[W]e sooner or later learn that if Jesus Christ was merely a Teacher, He adds to the burdens of human nature, for He erects an ideal that human nature can never attain. He tantalizes us by statements that poor human nature can never fit itself for. By no prayer, by no self-sacrifice, by no devotion, and by no climbing can any man attain to that 'Blessed are the pure in heart,' which Jesus Christ says is essential to seeing God.
When we come to the New Testament interpretation of our Lord we find He is not a Teacher, we find He is a Saviour. We find that His teaching is but a statement of the kind of life we will live when we have let Him re-make us by means of His Cross and by the incoming of His Spirit. The life of Jesus is to be made ours, not by our imitation, not by our climbing, but by means of His Death. It is not admiration for holiness, nor aspirations after holiness, but attainment of holiness, and this is ours from God, not from any ritual of imitation. ...[F]or the instruction and courage of those whose hearts are fainting in the way, ...to whom life holds out no more promises, ...let me bring the message contained in this Psalm [121], even as a cup of water from the clear sparkling spring of life. 'My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth.' He will take you up, He will re-make you, He will make your soul young and will restore to you the years that the cankerworm hath eaten, and place you higher than the loftiest mountain peak, safe in the arms of the Lord Himself, secure from all alarms, and with an imperturbable peace that the world cannot take away." Excerpt from Oswald Chambers, The Place of Help: A Book of Devotional Readings (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1936) 5-6 |
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November 2022
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Christ Jesus is
gold without alloy -- light without darkness -- glory without cloud -- "Yea, He is altogether lovely." Charles Spurgeon |