Quote of the Day

Years are slipping away and time is flying.  Graveyards are filling up and families are thinning.  Death and judgment are getting nearer to us all.  And yet you live like one asleep about your soul!  What madness!  What folly!  What suicide can be worse than this?
Awake before it be too late; awake, and arise from the dead, and live to God.  Turn to him who is sitting at the right hand of God, to be your Savior and Friend.  Turn to Christ, and cry mightily to him about your soul.  There is yet hope!

Holiness by J. C. Ryle p. 118

Quote of the Day

Many admire growth in grace in others, and wish that they themselves were like them.  But they seem to suppose that those who grow are what they are by some special gift or grant from God, and that as this gift is not bestowed on themselves they must be content to sit still.  This is a grievous delusion, and one against which I desire to testify with all my might.  I wish it to be distinctly understood that growth in grace is bound up with the use of means within the reach of all believers, and that, as a general rule, growing souls are what they are because they use these means.
Holiness by J. C. Ryle p. 114

The NEW and Improved ActionCambodia.org

Just in case you didn’t get the e-mail update (if you didn’t you can sign up here: http://actioncambodia.org/subscribe.html):

Thank you for all of your prayers for Christiana and baby. Christiana is doing well and all her doctor visits indicate baby is healthy. Please continue to pray that all goes well.

Over the past few months I have been working on a new website for Action Cambodia and it is finally done! I would like to invite you to visit our NEW site: http://www.actioncambodia.org

Let us know if you have any problems (or if you see any mistakes!). I hope the new website will allow you to keep better informed as to what the Lord is doing in Cambodia in and through the Action Cambodia team.

Currently Christiana and I are at about 70% of our monthly budget for Cambodia, but still less than 10% of our outgoing fund needs have been raised (for travel expenses, vehicle, and other necessities). Please keep us in prayer and ask that the Lord would move in the hearts of His people to give so that we can make our January departure date.

Thank you all for your many prayers and support,
Nathan and Christiana

Pray for us: http://www.actioncambodia.org/get-involved/pray.html
Support us: http://www.actioncambodia.org/supportwells.html
Visit our blog: http://nateandchristiana.actioncambodia.org

Quote of the Day

A single day in hell will be worse than a whole life spent in carrying the cross.

J. C. Ryle Holiness p. 99

Quote of the Day

Think what the children of this world will often do for liberty, without any religious principle.  Remember how Greeks, and Romans, and Swiss, and Tyrolese, have endured the loss of all things, and even life itself, rather than bend their necks to a foreign yoke.  Let their example provoke you to emulation.  If men can do so much for a corruptible crown, how much more should you do for one which is incorruptable!  Awake to a sense of the misery of being a slave.  For life, and happiness, and liberty, arise and fight.  Fear not to begin and enlist under Christ’s banner.  The great Captain of your salvation rejects none that come to him.

J. C. Ryle Holiness p. 81

Are There Multiple Types of True Believers?

I found this quote from Holiness by J. C. Ryle to be a very concise answer to the question of whether there are different types of believers, meaning those who just believe and those who are disciples, a separation from conversion and consecration:

Is it wise to draw such a deep, wide, and distinct line of separation between conversion and consecration, or the higher life, so called, as many do draw in the present day?  Is this according to the proportion of God’s Word?  I doubt it.
There is, unquestionably, nothing new in this teaching.  It is well known that Romish writers often maintain that the church is divided into three classes—sinners, penitents, and saints.  The modern teachers of this day who tell us that professing Christians are of three sorts—the unconverted, the converted, and the partakers of the “higher life” of complete consecration—appear to me to occupy very much the same ground!  But whether the idea be old or new, Romish or English, I am utterly unable to see that it has any warrant of Scripture.  The Word of God always speaks of two great divisions of mankind, and two only.  It speaks of the living and the dead in sin—the believer and the unbeliever—the converted and the unconverted—the travelers in the narrow way and the travelers in the broad—the wise and the foolish—the children of God and the children of the devil.  Within each of these two great classes there are, doubtless, various measures of sin and of grace; but it is only the difference between the higher and lower enf of an inclined plane.  Between these two great classes there is an enormous gulf; they are as distinct as life and death, light and darkness, heaven and hell.  But of a division into three classes the Word of God says nothing at all!  I question the wisdom of making newfangled divisions which the Bible has not made, and I thoroughly dislike the notion of a second conversion.

Holiness, J.C. Ryle p. xxx-xxxi

Imitate God

Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love just as Christ loved us and gave himself on our behalf, an offering and sacrifice as a soothing aroma to God.
But sexual immorality, or impurity, or greed must not even be mentioned among you as is fitting among holy ones, neither obscenity, or foolish talk, or course jesting, which are not proper, but rather thanksgiving.
For know this for certain, that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (being an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Let no one deceive you with baseless arguments, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon all those who are disobedient. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. For you were formally darkness, but now you are children of light in the Lord.  Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
(a translation of Ephesians 5:1-10)

“I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher”

I heard this quote from a Piper sermon on the life of George Whitefield.  It is regarding the accusation that Whitefield was an “actor” in the pulpit.  But more than that, it speaks much to how we should all handle the Word of God.

This is a quote from one of Whitefield’s sermons:

“I’ll tell you a story.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, in the last age, was acquainted with Betterton, the player.  You all have heard of Betterton.  One day the Archbishop of Canterbury said to Betterton the player, ‘Pray inform me, Mr. Betterton, what is the reason you actors on the stage can affect your congregation with things imaginary as if they were real, while we of the church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why, my Lord Archbishop (says Betterton the player), the reason is very plain.  We actors on the stage speak of things imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’

Therefore, I will bawl.  I will bawl.  I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher.”

SOURCE: http://books.google.com

“I’ll tell you a story.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, in the last age, was acquainted with Betterton, the player. You all have heard of Betterton. One day the Archbishop of Canterbury said to Betterton the player, ‘Pray inform me, Mr. Betterton, what is the reason you actors on the stage can affect your congregation with things imaginary as if they were real, while we of the church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why, my Lord Archbishop (says Betterton the player), the reason is very plain. We actors on the stage speak of things imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’

Therefore, I will bawl. I will bawl. I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher.”

Quote for the Day

Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false.  Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live forever.  Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse–so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable.  But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.  And immortality makes this other difference, which, by the by, has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy.  If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual.  But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment.

from: C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, with a New Introduction, of the Three Books, Broadcast Talks, Christian Behaviour, and Beyond Personality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, 74-75.

Psalm 21 Devotional

Psalm 20 and 21 come as a unit, and I thought it would be beneficial if we just looked at some of the contrasts between the two psalms so that we can learn more of the amazing blessing of coming before the Lord in prayer

Both psalms concern King David, and are setup so that the people of Israel pray them concerning the king.

Psalm 20 seems to take place in the midst of a war, asking that God would deliver the king, that they would win the battle

V1 “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble”

V2 “May He send you help from the sanctuary”

They express their hope in God’s help looking to the return of the king

V5 “We will sing for joy over your victory”

V6 “I know that the Lord saves His anointed”

But in psalm 21 the war is over, the king has returned and the people offer thanksgiving to the Lord and affirm their hope in God along with the king

In psalm 20 they prayed that God would give the king his heart’s desire (v4), and in Psalm 21 they praise God because He granted the king the desire of his heart (v2).  They asked that God would preserve their king from death, and He did.

God met the king with blessings of good things.

Psalm 21 is full of rejoicing, full of thanksgiving and hope – why?

Because of psalm 20

Requests were made of God, and God answered.

If there had been no prayer before entering the war, the joy of seeing God answer His people would not be experienced.

So let us come before God – the God who hears and answers His people’s prayers – let us come before Him placing our full trust in His power, so that in the future we might experience the joy of seeing His mighty power at work in our midst, so that we too can join in exalting the Lord, singing and praising His power.