The (UN)Adjusted Gospel and A Stack of Books

Wow! I can say with completely confidence that this year's T4G Conference in Louisville, KY was the most enriching event I've ever attended. Jesus Christ was exalted continually!

I worshipped the Savior as I listened to R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper, Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, Thabiti Anyabwile, C.J. Mahaney and Al Mohler expound on the true Gospel. If you have time, I recommend listening to the sessions from John Piper and John MacArthur. And if you have even more time, listen to them all!

I worshipped and wept every time all 7,000 (mostly) men sang powerful songs like How Firm A Foundation, Come Thou Fount and How Deep The Father's Love! I was filled up completely and still wanted more.

On top of all that, the leaders of this conference blessed each attendee with TWENTY FREE BOOKS. Every time we came in for another session, there was a stack of books in each seat. The retail value of the books was easily more than my registration fee. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to T4G 2012! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some reading to do...

T4G

In a few moments I'll be pointing my car eastward to make the trek to T4G.

I've been looking forward to this for months, because I'll have the chance to meet up with an old friend and hear teaching from men of God that I highly respect. I'm hoping (praying) to learn more about our holy God and the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ.

One of the men speaking this week will be R.C. Sproul. A quote from his book "The Holiness of God" kind of sums up so much of what I've been learning of late:

"When we encounter Him, the totality of our creatureliness breaks upon us and shatters the myth that we have believed about ourselves, the myth that we are demigods, junior-grade deities who will try to live forever . . . He is holy, and we are not."

Lead Me

I read this Scripture early this morning: “He will protect his faithful ones, but the wicked will disappear in darkness. No one will succeed by strength alone. " 1Samuel 2:9

Then I heard this song for the first time a little while later:


The Scripture . . . the song . . . struck me hard. God help me. I can't do this alone.

Three Things

I've just started reading Kevin DeYoung's "The Good News We Almost Forgot" and I'm really excited about it. The book is basically an exposition of the Heidelberg Confession and it looks to be enriching and encouraging. (I'm also looking forward to hearing Kevin in a session at the T4G Conference next week!)

The shortest summary of the Confession consists of three things: guilt, grace and gratitude. These three provide an all-encompassing and thorough perspective on Christian existence. DeYoung says "[i]f Christians would hold to all 'three things' and not just one or two, we would be saved from a lot of poor theology and bad ideas."

These three are actually part of the answer to the second question of this 16th century catechism:

Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things: First, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

We must admit our sin instead of excusing it.

We must trust another instead of ourselves.

We must live to give thanks instead of being thanked.

To The Thawing Wind

Not even three weeks ago snow covered the ground in my part of the world. Last night I mowed my lawn for the first time this year. The transition from Winter to Spring seems to happen so quickly around here. The first advances are made by the daffodils and tulips which sometimes actually brave the snow to send their green spears skyward before blooming. People are next to emerge like dandelions from their houses and once again they begin to populate the yards, garages and parks in my neighborhood. The sap is finally flowing in the trees and apparently in the people too.

I always think about Robert Frost's poem "To The Thawing Wind" at this time of year:

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!

Bring the singer, bring the nester;

Give the buried flower a dream;

Make the settled snowbank steam;

Find the brown beneath the white;

But whate'er you do tonight,

Bathe my window, make it flow,

Melt it as the ices go;

Melt the glass and leave the sticks

Like a hermit's crucifix;

Burst into my narrow stall;

Swing the picture on the wall;

Run the rattling pages o'er;

Scatter poems on the floor;

Turn the poet out of door.

True Love

The Sin Metaphor

The Savior, hanging above the earth, filthy, stinking, bleeding, agonizing, and becoming sin for me, demonstrated not only the lengths to which He would go to accomplish my salvation and rescue, but also in that Passion provided a visual metaphor of what sin does (has done, more properly) to the human soul. At the hands of sin (into which we willingly give ourselves up!) the soul is mercilessly shamed and stripped, beaten and torn, crushed and dessicated, pierced and drained and finally strung up to die.

If only all men could see themselves as they actually are, beyond clothing and form and flesh, they would realize that their souls resemble that picture of the Savior, decimated and suffering and succumbing to death on the cross.

Christ's suffering was horrible, but it had to be. And in it He showed me what He saved me from: what I used to be before I was clothed in His righteousness by God's unbelievable (but I must believe it!) grace.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

If you have eighteen minutes, the following is a great summary of historical crucifixion as well as Christ's suffering and His substitutionary atonement: