David Pawson’s Free MP3 Library

UK preacher David Pawson now has a website up where all of his sermons can be downloaded for free.  There are tons and tons of mp3s available.  If you’re looking for a good source of Arminian audio, this is the jackpot.

Site here: DavidPawson.org

Pawson includes a lot of historical facts in his presentations, which I enjoy.  He comes from a conservative/charismatic/Wesleyan view.  He has done expository preaching on almost every book of the Bible.

Interesting fact: Pawson is a direct descendent of John Pawson, a friend of John Wesley, and one of the first Methodist preachers.

English Phrases that Come from the Bible

I enjoy word etymology.  One thing that makes me smile is when someone uses a phrase that comes from the Bible.  We have lots of these sayings in English, and people who aren’t Christian use them all the time.   Of particular interest (at least to me) is that many of these sayings come from the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt 5-7).

Here are a few of these saying. If you can think of others, please reply, and I’ll add them to the list.

to go the extra mile:  Matt 5:41

until kingdom come:   Matt 6:10

You reap what you sow. Gal 6:7

the apple of my eye: Deut 32:10

a shining city on a hill: Matt 5:14

Don’t throw pearls before swine: Matt 7:6

A wolf in sheep’s clothing:  Matt 7:15

Turn the tables on someone:  John 2:15

The powers that be: Romans 13:1

to get away by the skin of your teeth: Job 19:20

a drop in the bucket: Isaiah 40:15

A leopard can’t change its spots.  Jer 13:23

The writing is on the wall. Daniel 5:5

to give up the ghost. Gen 25:8

The Lutheran Insulter

There’s nothing like being insulted by Martin Luther.  Quite a handy tool! Link here: The Lutheran Insulter

Sexual Purity – A Post for Men

Dale Wayman (a fellow Arminian blogger) has started a blog about men being real men.  It is dedicated to helping men avoid sexual temptation.  It can be found here: Iron Strikes. Be sure to check it out, he has some great insights.

I desire to be sexually pure. I want to be faithful to God, to my wife, to my family,  to my church, and to folks who read the blog. Here are some disciplines that I have found to help me to flee sexual temptation. These are not hard fast rules, each man is different, but this is what works for me.

Stay Close to God
I ask God to help me. I ask him to renew my mind. I ask him to keep the enemy away. I ask him to purify my sub conscience. I ask him to show me lies that I have believed, that have warped my sexuality. I ask him to heal me. He is faithful.  Staying close to God mean listening to His voice.  He knows when I’m tempted, and desires to protect me.  Staying close to God requires setting aside my rights.  If I sense a prompting from the Spirit to do something (like turn off the computer), I need to do it.  Staying close to God also means staying close to others who care – particularly my wife.

Be Accountable to my Wife
Almost every day my wife asks me this question, “Have you been good?”  Implicit in her question is whether or not I have looked at pornography or have entertained lustful thoughts. I can’t lie to my wife, and she can sense if I’m not fully honest.  So she keeps me accountable. I’m  thankful that I have a strong and confident wife who has the courage and strength to ask me these sorts of questions.  Word to the men out there: you can’t go alone.  You need someone else to keep you accountable.   If this issue is too hurtful for your wife (or if you’re single), you need some like-minded Christian men to keep you accountable.

Go to Bed on Time
This is kind of a no brainer, but it works. I’m most likely to be tempted when everyone else has gone to bed and when I’m tired.  If I go to bed on time, I avoid the temptation.  If I do happen to stay up late, my wife knows to ask me the question above.

Spend Time With My Wife and Family
One aspect of my personality is that I tend to focus exclusively on one thing at a time (like blogging!). Being focused is good when I want to accomplish a task, but it’s bad when it results in neglecting my family. It is a trait that can also lend itself to a selfish inward bent. And that bent leads to temptation.  So it’s important for me to set aside time to spend with my wife and family.  It results in stronger relationships with them, and keeps me from temptation.

Avoid the Triggers
There are certain triggers for sexual temptations.  With some deliberate planning I can usually avoid those triggers. The example above (going to bed) is one of them. Here’s another example: I enjoy reading news online. Some good news sites also promote articles on the side that trigger temptation for me – typically stuff about celebrities or fashion or whatever. Some of the worst are the English/UK news sites. So I liberally apply firefox addblock to block all of the images on those sites. No images, no trigger, and I can still read the news. Your triggers may be different, and you know what they are.  If not, ask God, and he will point them out to you.  Identify them and plan accordingly.

The Difference Between Jealousy and Envy

There is a difference between jealousy and envy.

Jealousy is the emotion that comes when you lose someone’s affections that rightly belong to you.  If my wife left me for another man, I would be jealous of that man.

Envy is the emotion that comes when you want someone’s affections that don’t belong to you.  If I wanted another man’s wife, I would be envious of that man.

The Bible describes God as jealous. Jealousy is intrinsic to his character (Exodus 34:14).  God becomes jealous when we give our first affections to another instead of to Him.  Our affections rightly belong to God.

God is never described as envious.

The jealousy of God can only be genuine if we are freely able to do things that God does not prefer – such as giving our first affections to another.  If exhaustive determinism is true, God cannot be jealous.

The Hebrew word for jealousy is “kanah“.  God is El Kanah.

Kanah is also translated as zealous (Isaiah 9:7).  In the New Testament, the Zealots (kananaios) were those who were willing to die to free Israel from Rome.  One of Jesus’ disciples was a  Zealot.

God’s jealousy is like that.  God’s jealousy is a catalyst to action.

Jesus Christ was willing to die to save us all from sin.

Why?  He’s a jealous God.

The Asbury Revival of 1970

An account of the Asbury Revival of 1970.  37 minutes long, and well worth watching.  Pray that God will do something in our day too.

“A format had developed, it started in that opening chapel.  A student would give his witness. He would tell about how God was dealing with him about sin in his life.  He’d make his confession, and then he would tell about how God had brought forgiveness to him, and restoration, or how the need of his heart had been met – his spiritual need.  As he would speak, there would be somebody in the audience who would say “that’s like me”.  And then that person would come under conviction, and come forward and kneel at the alter. So a pattern had been developed, of testimony, of sharing, then after the testimony  – prayer.   And after the prayer singing and praise and adoration and then more witnessing, sharing, of how God had met human need…I heard these students sharing what God was doing in their hearts, and how their lives were being cleaned out.  And God was restoring them if they had known him before, or else they they were telling for the first time they had found him.  And how relationships were being straightened out.”

“Now that was the kind of thing that was taking place. An honest candid dealing with person sin, and with personal disobedience and personal problems.”

“Things that were simply tradition became reality.  Things that were simply vocabulary became human experience.  And what had been transmitted from head to head now suddenly became living reality in people’s hearts.”

“It was interesting to me what the emphasis was of the Holy Spirit in those days.  There was an amazing openness and transparency…It was amazing the restraint of the Holy Spirit.  The emphasis was never on the gifts of the Spirit…The emphasis was upon sin the need for repentance, the need for restitution, the need for repairing relationships human being to human being, and the need the need for bringing a life into obedience to the highest and the best.”

What is the Nature of God’s Morality? Good Critique of John Piper’s Theology

The Christian Post recently had a post by John Piper, entitled: What Made It OK for God to Kill Women, Children in Old Testament?.  Here’s a snippet:

It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.

God is taking life every day. He will take 50,000 lives today. Life is in God’s hand. God decides when your last heartbeat will be, and whether it ends through cancer or a bullet wound. God governs.

So God is God! He rules and governs everything. And everything he does is just and right and good. God owes us nothing.

If you are troubled by Piper’s concept of God’s morality, you’re not alone!  Bob Anderson from the Society of Evangelical Arminians has written up an excellent response.  It can be found here.  Anderson writes that:

What is at stake is the morality and righteousness of God with the random killing of individuals or groups. The deterministic paradigm, which reduces the very concept of the “good” is manifest in Piper’s statement below:

“It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he
pleases.”

That is an appalling statement, because it contradicts the righteousness of God that we seek to affirm – the righteousness of the God who pleads with sinners to repent so as not to die. It certainly is an expression of sovereignty, but not righteous sovereignty. “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:4 NRS). By definition, Christians define God as the good and the good is for all. Evil, in and of itself cannot be the good. The good can only be derived when God labors within an evil situation to bring it about. Perhaps that is what we should see as the miracle of the transcendent God. God is not part of the evil that exists because of human sin. Rather he brings about good because he is not part of the sin.

Piper believes that God can do whatever he wants on the basis of power.  That is wrong.  There are certain things God won’t do because of his good character, even though he has the power to do so. God is moral and his morality is intrinsic to his character.  He does not arbitrarily kill people.