AA Hodge and Calvinism

 

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Newsy stuff

Athlone St Pats Day Parade

Been a busy week this week. Usual Monday work with taking the Assembley in Clogher Valley Independent Christian School (Studying the Book of Nehemiah) and then the Lower Secondary Scripture Class where the life and times of the Apostle Paul has held our attention since September. We covered Acts 21 last week. On Monday night, I led the gospel meeting down in a community centre in Swords in Co. Dublin, but there was little interest despite a big outreach effort the previous Saturday. Two converted RC's came into the meeting, including a Hungarian man who had studied for 5 years to become a priest before getting saved. Wednesday saw me in solo outreach in Cavan Town and then I joined up with another believer from the FPC outreach work in Athlone for the St. Patrick's day parade. The picture on the left is neither me nor my friend -  You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, then fire eating is not for you. BTW: Don't try this at home. Or if you do and it doesn't work out, don't leave any evidence that you got the suggestion from this blog :o) We gave out many copies of Dick Keogh's booklets on St. Patrick and "Easter in Ireland" which were well received. Very few were thrown away. We preached in the open air twice - once beside the 1921 IRA monument in the town at a busy traffic junction. Several people stood for a while on the balcony of the hotel opposite and listened to the preaching. One RC man in the other location got a bit nasty, but nothing beyond a few verbals. The sowing has been done - we look to God to give the increase according to His sovereign will on the matter. 

I usually take Friday's off - coffee with the missus in Enniskillen is a nice relaxation. There are a number of charity shops in Enniskillen and always the chance to pick up some Christian books at good prices. This week's hoke brought me:

William Tyndale by JR Broom (Gospel Standard Trust publications)  (available here on .pdf file)

Jesus Christ and Him crucified by Martyn Lloyd Jones (Banner of Truth)

Dialogue with a Muslim friend by James Cunningham (Open Doors)

Gideon by Jeff Lucas (Authentic Publishers)

Last night, I preached at the Parent's Open Night in the last for the season children's meeting in Fintona Independent Methodist Church. The room was packed with some unsaved parents in - including some RC's for the first time. After the children sang and recited Scripture verses etc., I used the PowerPoint and spoke on the Saviour's parable of the merchant man finding the Pearl of Great Price. There was a lovely supper afterwards. 

After I finish this article, time to get into the study of messages for a late booking for Londonderry FPC tomorrow. The booked preacher has broken his foot and cannot come. So there goes my only non preaching Lord's Day between now and the middle of May. Monday night sees another booking engagement back in Athlone again for the monthly gospel meeting in the prince of Wales hotel.

So that's it for another while. Interesting days on Twitter too during the breaks. The doctrines of sovereign grace are too unpalatable for some professing believers. But still - they are comforting to me and millions more. The Lord has decreed that His church will be built through the means of evangelism. And therefore, as the hymn writer so wondering put it: "Onward we go, no doubt or fear."  See you around. Fair faa ye!

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God calling sinners

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/commentaries.html

Right from the very beginning of his long ministry, CH Spurgeon professed himself to be an admirer of John Calvin. Early on in his first volume of published sermons, he described John Calvin as being an able writer and preacher on the doctrines of grace. The tributes grew to telling us that he knew more about the gospel than almost any uninspired man who ever lived, and again, that John Calvin was the most consistent expositor of the Bible that ever lived. When under bitter attack from some very vocal Hyper Calvinists because he believed in duty faith and duty repentance and the free offer of the gospel (they branded him as a mongerel Calvinst) Spurgeon retorted that this mongerel Calvinist had read most of Calvins commentaries and Calvin's Institutes (pictured above). This was not the only reference, Spurgeon made to the Institutes of the Christian Religion (effectively Calvin's systematic theology book). He called them later on "a most wonderful production for thought if not for accuracy" although (rightly so) claiming that he believed nothing nor drew any inspiration because Calvin wrote it but simply because he found the sentiments contained therein to be Biblical. 

An interesting observation flows from the pen of Spurgeon, which will detain us here, for a short while. With all his fundamental endorsement of Calvin's Insitutes, Spurgeon claimed that there were times when Calvin cut them to pieces when expounding the Scriptures from his pulpit. I must give the whole quote here because it is important:

"Good Calvin says, and his remarks are always weighty, and always excellent — (I do not hesitate to say that Calvin is the grandest expositor that ever yet thought to make plain the Word of God; in his commentary I have often found him cutting his own Institutes to pieces, not attempting to give a passage a Calvinistic meaning, but always trying to interpret God’s Word as he finds it) — Calvin says this man had in the first place, only a faith, which relied for one thing upon Christ." (MTP: Vol 6 #317) 

 Yesterday, while travelling home on the bus from evangelistic outreach in Dublin, I may have come across such a passage. I was reading one of Calvin's sermons which he preached on Jeremiah 23:36 about  God judging the wicked people to whom Jeremiah ministered. Calvin preached:

"In forbidding them to mention the word burden, it was the same thing as though he had said, “Let not this form of speaking be any longer in use among you.” He then adds, For to every one his word shall be his burden. By these words he shews that what is bitter in prophecies is as it were accidental; for God has nothing else in view in addressing men, but to call them to salvation. The word of God then in itself ought to be deemed sweet and delightful. Whence then is this bitterness and hatred towards it? even from the wickedness of men alone. As when a sick person, eating the most wholesome food finds it turned into poison, the cause being in himself; so it is with us, it is our own fault that the word of God becomes a burden. It was, moreover, the Prophet’s design to shew that the Jews had no reason to complain that prophecies were grievous to them, and always announced some trouble; for God wishes to address men with lenity and kindness, but he is forced by their wickedness to deal sharply with them."

One thing, though, whether in the Institutes or in the commentaries, Calvin always held that while salvation was always by grace, the cause of man's damnation always lay within himself. No wonder CH Spurgeon thought so highly of him and recommended his writings to others. 

* Calvin's Commentaries online here
* Calvin's Institutes online here



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Grieveous Wolves

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Putting this up here on the blog because I want to be able to access it again easily.  It shows how relevant the warning both of Paul and Jude proved to be. This is what passes for the gospel in some places today. Satan must jump up and down with undiluted joy at the thought of this passing for authentic NT  Christianity. This is not a Calvinist versus the rest issue. This is the difference between NT Christianity and the Satanic counterfeit. Jesus saves His people from their sins. (Mathtew 1:21) From such grieveous wolves, masquerading as angels of light, good Lord, deliver us.

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