Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service has just announced a deal on the newly published 4 volume set of J. C. Ryle’s commentaries on the Gospels. Ryle is an Anglican and Calvinistic, but an excellent and godly man. His book Holiness is well worth having. I expect these volumes are also worthy. This 4 volume set is on for just $32.99.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I guess I need to get caught up…

I want to give you a summary of our message last Sunday, preached after my marathon across the mountains the day before. I am thankful for portable computing! I had my message all ready for printing and preaching before I left Alberta.

Our subject this week: How does Faith Work? The idea of the message was to impress on our people the fact that saving faith is recognizable. The proposition I was working on was this: Faith is seen in the fruit it bears. Faith is the life of heaven lived on earth. There are several ways the notion of faith is seen in the New Testament. First, we have faith as a noun. “The faith”, Jude calls it. He refers to ‘the faith’ as a shorthand for an objective confession that is the foundation of saving faith. Without it, you cannot be a Christian. Paul speaks about believing in the Lord Jesus and confessing the resurrection in the heart. John speaks about confessing the Lord Jesus as the Christ come in the flesh. From incarnation to resurrecton, and every aspect of the doctrine of Christ in between, this is ‘the faith’. If you won’t accept this, you cannot have Christ.

The next aspect of faith is faith as a verb. This is Hebrews 11 faith. Faith that trusts. Faith that trusts God’s promises, though invisible, though not yet reality. This is how our understanding of creation works: we weren’t there, but we trust God’s word. God made promises to Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, etc. and they believed God. These men staked their lives on the invisible promises of God. As a matter of fact, we who are called believers today must also stake our lives on God’s invisible promises as well. Faith is a verb. We trust God.

Last, we looked at faith as a work or as a way of life. This is James 2.18 faith. ‘Show me’ faith. How does James urge us to ‘show’ faith. By caring for widows and orphans. By keeping unspotted from the world. By bridling the tongue. By self-control. By being a doer of the word. Faith works by personal devotion to the standards of holiness God lays out for us in the scripture. Faith works by love (Gal 5.6) – love for Christ, first of all, and for the saints throuh Him. Those who claim that Christianity has no need to conform to standards of holiness have a low regard for the Christ who bought them.

~~~

In our afternoon service, Rory preached on the subject of Paul’s conversion under the title ‘Getting to Know God’. Rory’s message described how Saul’s life was radically changed by the gospel and called us to know God as Paul did in order to experience the same kind of change for ourselves.

~~~

Next week we have evangelistic meetings with evangelist Dan Manka. He has his family here to minister with us on Sunday through Friday. We are handing out many flyers for the meetings and hope to see a few new faces in the meetings. A few? Well, we hope to see many, but we are of little faith.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

In my last post, I mentioned I was headed to the ferry and to Alberta to take a couple of my kids to camp. A number of events highlighted the trip and I thought them worthy of a post or two…

First, Alberta.

What is there about Alberta that so enthralls me? It is the land of my birth and rearing. Of course I am partial to it for these reasons. If you are not prairie born and raised, you may find my fascination with a mostly flat province a little odd. I have always said that there is nothing wrong with BC that clear-cutting and a lot of dynamite can’t fix! I love the flatlands. The flatlands are not really flat, each long rise of the undulating prairie reveals new and gorgeous vistas. In some places you can see fifty miles or more. There is a spot on the highway home where you can see my home town from over 20 miles away. The effect is best at night, when the lights of the town twinkle in the distance. During the day it is a little harder to distinguish the town in the distance. I am always reminded of the verse, ‘a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid’ when I see my home town twinkling in the distance.

July is the month of harvesting hay all over Alberta. The sight of fields being cut, or cut hay curing in the sun, or fields filled with bales for mile after mile is a welcome and familiar site to me. The smell of freshly cut hay is one that spells summer time and sunshine. Many of the fields of Alberta are sown in canola, in full flower during haying season. Canola fields are a brilliant yellow, stretching sometimes for miles, bordered by patches of green … hay, oats, wheat, barley, whatever… The oats, wheat, and barley will turn golden by the harvest with new vistas spread before your eyes as the summer wanes into fall..

The roads of Alberta are mostly straight and a good many of them are lightly traveled. You can go miles without seeing another vehicle, especially off the ‘main drag’ between Edmonton and Calgary. When I was younger, I put my first car (1972 Dodge Charger, 400 cu in engine) to the test on a lonely stretch of these highways. When I hit 110 mph with my car not straining at all, I decided that was fast enough. I drove over that same stretch of highway on this trip. My more sedate Dodge Caravan wasn’t up to Charger standards (and I am more mature now???). The roads of Alberta invite going out ‘for a spin’ just for the sheer pleasure of driving and looking out over those distant miles. When I was a youngster and began driving, it was nothing for someone to run into Edmonton (90 miles away) for a cup of coffee. The prairies invite such mobility, especially now that we have passed the muddy pioneer days and are in the days of the automobile and paved highways. I suppose people don’t take such larks that much anymore. We even have several coffee shops in my home town these days, even a McDonald’s!

Most people we know rave over the beauty of my current home in British Columbia. But for me, the Alberta countryside beats the Pacific rain forest hands down.

The needs of people are the same in both places. Secular, worldly, and in need of a Saviour. I am not overly partial to the big cities in either place. I am a small town boy, after all. But if I had my druthers, you could bury me on the lone prairie.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Our next installment in our ‘Law, Legalism, and Life’ series addresses the subject God’s Viewpoint of Righteous Human Works.

The main idea of the message is that God evaluates all human works. The Bible reveals that certain kinds of human works are unacceptable to God while other kinds of human works please God. The devoted Christian must turn his mind to understanding what those works are that please God.

There are two sorts of righteous works that are unacceptable to God. First are those that are intended to oblige God’s grace. This is salvation-by-works legalism. It is an attempt to manipulate God as if he were an idol. The notion is this, ‘If I stroke God certain ways, he will give me what I want.’ Thus the prophets of Ba’al attempted to manipulate their idol on Mt Carmel. The fact is God’s grace is obliged to the works of one man, Jesus Christ, who perfectly kept the law for fallen men. All men who are ‘in Christ’ are recipients of God’s obligations to the perfect obedience of his Son.

The second sort of righteous works that are unacceptable to God are works intended to impress man. These are the works of the Pharisees who sounded the trumpet when they gave alms. They had their reward. These are the works of the Pharisees when they sought to please themselves with their own righteousness. God has no time for self-righteous hypocrisy. No higher spiritual plane is found by ‘working the right works.’

Nevertheless, there are works that do please God.

Colossians 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

There are many other passages that highlight this concept. Eph 2.8-10 tell us that salvation is not of works, but unto works that we were ordained to walk in. This is where a godly Christian ministry points the saints to. I said this, ‘Our ministry among you is to call you to a life of spiritual fervour — we aren’t satisfied with merely supplying ‘fire insurance’, i.e., ‘get out of hell free’ cards.’ We are after developing devoted saints who delight to please God and delight in the things of God rather than the things of the world.

~~~

After the morning message, two of our youngsters and I are off to Alberta for C.O.W.s – a traveling mission camp ministry that we are glad to support. While the kids are at camp, I will get to hear Dr. Bob and Stephen in Calgary, then off home to Drayton Valley to visit my parents.

Rory is preaching our afternoon message as we travel. We plan to be back next Saturday for another great day in the Lord.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Today is 7/7/07 – perhaps thousands of couples are besieging churches, chapels, and justices of the peace in order to ‘say their vows’ on this supposedly especially fortuitous day. One woman, the proprietor of a wedding chapel in Las Vegas, said that she has never seen it so busy in fifty years in the business. Cars were ‘lined up’ for the ‘drive thru’. The drive thru??? You can have a drive thru wedding? Unbelievable!

The news about the multitudes of wedding plans on this day made the front page of the National Post today, one of Canada’s major newspapers. I imagine the same was true of many papers around North America.

Isn’t it a bit pathetic that people are so insecure in their souls that they think a day with some numbers on it will make them perhaps that much more fortunate in their wedding vows? Don’t they realize how arbitrary calendars are? If we were still following the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian one, July 7, 07, would be long gone by now. [Not to mention that the year 1 is off by at least four years. We should be in 2011-2013 by now.]

Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.

Quite clearly, the problem is that these people do not know God. They are bound by superstition and pagan thinking.

Our church only has a few young people in it, none of them close to marriage. If we had eligible couples though, I think I would have refused them this day, just because…

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I am just about through with my latest issue of Biblical Archaelogical Review. The magazine can’t really be classified as a Christian magazine, though the articles usually relate to Bible topics. The general editor and the vast majority of contributors appear to come from at best a fairly liberal position, which is to say an unbelieving position. The editorial pages are especially galling, and I have to remind myself that I don’t subscribe for the editorials!

The content of the articles is usually a fairly objective discussion of the facts along with argumentation oriented to one archaelogical theory or another. Occasionally there are liberal notions present and the galling dating system BCE/CE. I mostly am looking for background information concerning the biblical record from this magazine and on that score it delivers.

For example, the recent issue has an article on Joseph, asking a question about the passage in Gen 41.14 where Joseph is said to have shaved prior to his first audience with Pharaoh. The auther asks why would Joseph do this? The suggested answer is that the Pharaoh would be considered a god in the Egyptian system and as such could only be attended by people who were ‘clean’. In the Egyptian system, the priests were completely shaven, all bodily hair removed, as a sign of their cleanness entering into the courts of their gods (i.e., the temples, including the palace). The reference in Genesis, one I noticed again just the other day in my regular reading, is fairly obscure and perhaps isn’t intended to convey a lot of meaning. But understanding the context of this ‘by the way’ type of remark might cast some light on the whole story, including the relationship between Pharaoh and Joseph and contributes to a better understanding of why Joseph’s brothers did not recognize him at all. He would have appeared comepletely other-worldly to them, if indeed his hair, beard, etc, were all completely shaved off in his position as second in command to Pharaoh.

The previous issue contained a particularly distressing article on the loss of faith. Four archaeological scholars were interviewed, two who claimed to have lost their faith, two who claimed not. Given BAR‘s slant, it is not surprising that it appears none of these men actually ever have had saving faith. Those who claimed to have lost faith came from fairly conservative evangelical backgrounds, but their current testimonies show they never exercised living faith. Such stories are heartbreaking.

Resources like BAR can be useful, but they must be handled with care. There be dragons [of unbelief] there.

Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I have mostly finished my first look at the modern Sword and Trowel. If this issue is typical, the magazine is worth receiving. The second article by Peter Masters is also excellent. Entitled ‘Paul’s Positive Plan for Holiness’, Masters outlines from Rm 7-8 eight essential steps for pursuing personal holiness. Masters critiqued John Piper’s theories elsewhere for his denial of personal effort in sanctification. I agree with Masters on this point. Piper is guilty of a neo-Keswickian view of sanctification which distorts the Christian life.

Here is a summary of Masters’ eight points:

• Recognize the Problem – I still have a sin nature, defeated by the cross, but still alive and a powerful force in my soul, if I allow it.

“A serious determination to struggle against sin is the only way to live as a Christian, yet it is a stance that modern evangelicalism, saturated in worldliness and show-business informality and entertainment, does not want to take.”

• Have Positive Aims – have a goal of godliness, an objective to strive after, a ‘good I would’ do, much as an athlete sets objectives for his physical progress, so too we must set objectives for spiritual progress.

• Plan to Avoid Sin – the antithesis of point two: have an objective NOT to sin, an evil ‘I would not’.

“Sin will not be broken and overcome without a longing to avoid it, and the preparation of a prior battle-plan of intentions.”

• Keep Up Self-Examination – constantly put yourself under scrutiny from the objective perspective of God’s word. Be ready and quick to confess sin that is exposed.

• Long for Overall Improvement – longing for improvement stretches out towards the goal, presses on to victory as in Phil 3.13-14. This is a daily dedication to holiness.

• Seek Spiritual Help – by this Masters means the help that is readily available from God, even as the Lord taught us to pray ‘Lead us not into temptation’.

“Daily we pray for a lively conscience and a fresh realization that we are observed by the Lord. Strong and besetting sins always yeld following earnest prayer, because the Spirit gives power to resist them, often along with a sense of revulsion against sin.”

• Mind Heavenly Things – actively direct your thoughts to spiritual things, mind the things of the Spirit, set your affections on things above. Masters points out that we are often too much minded with earthly things. Like sports, for example.

“Whatever engages the believer most will shape that person’s heart and outlook, in line with the words of Christ, ‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’ (Matthew 6.21).”

• Mortify Sin

“Mortification means putting to death these aspirations, and quenching sinful moods, tempers, words and acts. … Not one of these steps may be overlooked, but this eighth is probably the decisive one. Grasping the help of God, by prayer, we put the sin to death and redirect the thoughts to something higher and better.”

~~~

I hope you find this helpful. The whole article is well worth your reading if you can find a copy. Subscription info can be found here.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I received the latest copy of Frontline today. This is the one that includes the articles accompanying the annual resolutions. Earlier, I was quite critical of the last sentence of the resolution.

The article is much better than the resolution and clearly spells out some of the ethical (and possibly legal) pitfalls dealing with illegal aliens who might be converted and attempt to be involved in a local church.

Nevertheless, I still remain convinced that the concluding sentence of the resolution is too weak.

Ministry to illegal people of any kind involves huge stumbling blocks immediately. If a person repents and comes to Christ, they must really bring forth works fit for repentance. For a person guilty of a crime (any crime, including illegal immigration) the number one stumbling block is to make their crime right, whatever the consequences to themselves.

Ministry to illegal aliens is fraught with difficulty at the point of conversion because of this stumbling block. In my view, real faith in Christ will evidence itself if the convert is willing to repent of his lawbreaking and make things right.

Ministry to professing Christian illegal aliens is hard as well – they may be genuinely converted, but may have foolishly justified illegal activity for one reason or another. Regardless of the situation, I don’t believe tolerating these offenses is any help to brethren guilty of them.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

My third installment in the series Law, Legalism, and Life examines The Place of Law [Morning Message, 7.1.07]. I was working on this proposition: ‘The goal in preaching Christian standards is not to impose law on the Christian church – no law can achieve the goals of sanctification and personal devotion.’

First, law, especially God’s Law, is defined. God has authority to impose law and his people yield their wills to God’s authority.

Second, the design of law is to protect sovereignty and promote the general good. Likewise, God’s Law protect’s God’s glory and promotes order and well-being in society, but it is designed for more than that. God’s law imposes a spiritual dimension and accountability to God in the mix. When God’s laws are broken, man is spiritually accountable, for he has sinned. In the end, we need to see that God’s Law is designed for man’s good, not man’s grief.

Finally, however, we come to the crux of the matter with respect to law. Law has a defect – it can call us to account (conviction) but it cannot change us (conversion). I noted four defects that manifest the inability of law to change hearts: First, men cannot keep the law. ‘Most of the time’ isn’t good enough. The Law demands perfection. Second, there is a danger of making the law an end in itself. The keeping of the law becomes an idol and men construct a labyrinth of means to keep from breaking the letter of the law (Pharisaism). Third, as mentioned, it is impossible for the Law to make man righteous. Law is imposed by power (authority). If I have the power, I can make a man conform to my law, but I cannot change his heart. He can still be ‘standing up on the inside’ to cite an old illustration of a little boy made to sit in the corner by his mother. For the power of law to have any lasting effect, something has to happen to the heart first. Fourth, the Law is not enough. In other words, the Law actually only expresses a minimum standard. The Ten Commandments say, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Is that all there is to the standard? That is the bare minimum! God says, be ye holy as I am holy. Jesus said that if you hate, you are guilty. The law isn’t enough. Don’t congratulate yourself if you can keep a law or two, you need to be perfectly holy, just like God.

In the end, we need to learn the lesson of repentance, just like Job. Laws are good and are meant for good, but the real lesson we need to learn is not to congratulate ourselves for law-keeping but to fall on our faces before our holy God and shut our mouths. We have nothing to say to him with whom we have to do. We must bow our hearts in repentance and ask for God to change us. No amount of lawkeeping will bring about the change we need.

Next week I will look at what God thinks of our good works.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I am a member and enthusiastic supporter of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International. I am pleased with the direction it is taking and was especially pleased recently by the inclusion of Clarence Sexton as one of the speakers at the annual meeting just a few weeks ago, despite the criticism of naysayers [see my comments in the comments section there].

Having said that, let me offer a criticism of one of the 2007 resolutions as published at the FBF website here. The resolution concerns illegal aliens. I think the general meaning of the resolution is correct, but that the resolution doesn’t go far enough. Here is the resolution in question:

Resolution 07-02: Concerning Ministry to Illegal Immigrants.

Recognizing the New Testament church’s obligation to win and disciple the world, the FBFI acknowledges the responsibility of fundamental Baptist churches to reach the growing number of immigrants in our communities regardless of their legal status. We urge churches to avoid making legal status, in any way, a condition of evangelism. But we also urge churches to practice and teach submission to human governmental authority as an essential aspect of Christian growth. Churches should act consistently in the matter, not treating the legal status of an immigrant differently from other issues of equivalent moral and spiritual import in the lives of church members. We recognize the autonomy of each local church to implement these principles in harmony with its own understanding and application of church polity.

The problem I have with this resolution is the last sentence. Yes, local churches are autonomous, but we as believers ought to call our autonomous brethren into account concerning their obedience to Scripture.

I am especially concerned with ‘Spanish’ churches who claim to be fundamentalist but at the same time knowingly use illegal aliens in any capacity of ministry. Do they ever preach Romans 13? What about 1 Peter 2? Should illegal aliens serve as deacons in any local church? Should they teach Sunday School? Should they serve in any capacity or even be admitted to membership?

There are all kinds of stories offered concerning the hardship that individuals experience in their home countries. I appreciate the difficulty people have in some countries, but these stories of hardship are meant to justify lawbreaking. The solution to problems for believers can’t be to simply flout the laws of more prosperous countries. The excuses of illegal aliens are not persuasive. I recall a chapel speaker many years ago uttering the line, ‘an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.’

I say this as the descendant of immigrants, as a friend of immigrants, and in particular as a friend and former pastor to some whom I know are persisting as illegal aliens in the USA. I have counseled my friends to get themselves legal. I am told that I don’t know the ‘prejudice’ in the system, that the cost is very high, etc, etc. I really can’t buy that argument. It is right to do right and we ought to do it.

And the so-called Fundamental Baptist churches that tolerate illegal aliens need to read their Bibles and submit to the Word of God. They should encourage converts to get legal, whatever the cost, or go home and serve God there. Excuse making needs to come to an end.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3