That Deadly Darling

God cures David of adultery by killing his endeared child. There is some Delilah, some darling, some beloved sin or other that a Christian's calling, condition, constitution, or temptations leads him to play with and to hug in his own bosom. As in a plot of ground that lies untilled, among the great variety of weeds there is usually some master-weed, which is more plenteous and more repulsive than all the rest. So it is also in the souls of men, though there be a general mixture and medley of all evil and corrupt qualities, yet there is some one sin which is usually paramount, which is most powerful and prevalent, which sways and manifests itself more eminently and evidently than any other of them.

So, though the root of sin and bitterness has spread itself over all, yet every man has his inclination to one kind of sin rather than another. And this may be called a man's besetting sin, his bosom sin, his darling sin.

Now, it is one of the hardest works in this world to subdue and bring under control this bosom sin! Oh! the prayers, the tears, the sighs, the sobs, the groans, the distress that it will cost a Christian before he subdues this darling sin!

A man may easily subdue and mortify such and such sins, but when it comes to the master-sin, to the bosom-sin, oh! What tugging and pulling is there! What striving and struggling is there to get off that sin, to get down that sin!

Now, if the Lord, by smiting you in some near and dear enjoyment, shall draw out your heart to fall upon smiting of your master-sin and shall so sanctify the affliction as to make it issue in the mortification of your bosom corruption, what eminent cause will you have rather to bless Him, than to sit down and murmur against Him! And doubtless if you are dear to God, God will, by striking your dearest mercy, put you upon striking at your darling sin! Therefore, do not murmur, even when God touches the apple of your eye; even when He has snatched the fairest and the sweetest flower out of your bosom.

— Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 13-14, italics original.

Where Do You Get Your Water?

"Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken l me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:12-13).

In this passage pregnant with passion and feeling, the Lord inveighs against His people, Israel, for the utter inanity of their ways. Here is the Lord, the fountain of life, a never-ending source of refreshment, theirs for the taking if they would but receive and drink. But, no, they would rather engage in the back-breaking, arduous task of digging out these containers of water that have no choice but to eventually crack and dismantle into ineffectiveness—so then they dig out some more, a continuous exercise in tiresome idolatry!

It does not take much soul-searching to find that we ourselves have been drinking from our own cesspools instead of quenching our thirst on the life-giving fountain of Christ. While the Lord bids us come and drink, we go off and get sloshed on fetid beverage that can take the form of legitimate sources of providential joy gone sour by overindulgence or actual blatant excursions to sinful revelry. When all the true comfort that we can ever have in this life is in the realization "that I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him" (Heidelberg Catechism Q&A1), we settle for false hopes and aspirations.

And yet the Lord is faithful with a faithfulness that is beyond the capacity of our sinful, finite souls to comprehend, so He implores, "Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the Lord; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the Lord. Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord; for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion" (Jer. 3:12-14).

Listen to this life-giving message by Dr. David P. Murray entitled, "Diggers or Drinkers", for a masterful exposition of the passage above.

Good Times, Bad Times, Gimme Some O' That

"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" — Psalm 30:5.

Their mourning shall last but until morning. God will turn...

- their winter's night into a summer's day,

- their sighing into singing,

- their grief into gladness,

- their mourning into music,

- their bitter into sweet,

- their wilderness into a paradise.

The life of a Christian is filled up with interchanges of

- sickness and health,

- weakness and strength,

- want and wealth,

- disgrace and honor,

- crosses and comforts,

- miseries and mercies,

- joys and sorrows,

- mirth and mourning.

All honey would harm us; all wormwood would undo us, a composition of both is the best way in the world to keep our souls in a healthy constitution. It is best and most for the health of the soul that the warm south wind of mercy, and the cold north wind of adversity do both blow upon it. And though every wind that blows, shall blow good to the saints, yet certainly their sins die most, and their graces thrive best, when they are under the frigid, drying, nipping north wind of calamity, as well as under the warm, nourishing south wind of mercy and prosperity.

— Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod [Pensacola, FL: Chapel Library, 2007], 9-10.

What Is the Gospel?

The Right and Wrong in Richard Foster

It is certainly a misconception by many who are vaguely aware of the meat and substance of Reformed theology, piety, and practice that we of the Reformed persuasion are lean on the area of private spiritual devotion. So you have the likes of Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Donald Whitney, et al. filling in the demand for more "instruction" on "spiritual formation," in the hopes of accelerating sanctification.

But whereas Scripture has laid out the three means of grace, i.e., the preaching of the Word, the Sacraments, and prayer, as the ways by which God has promised to meet us, build our faith, and hence produce the gratitude that is the ground of all God-pleasing obedience, gurus of "spiritual discipline" make much of introspection and obsessive "fruit-hunting" through devices that are really extrabiblical, taking more from mysticism than the catholic Christian faith.

The Juice of Life: God's Promises

I recently bought Francis Schaeffer's "How Should We Then Live" DVD. I must say that it has been a treat watching and hearing him explain through various epochs in history how mankind finally ended up in misery, with his pitiful attempts at finding meaning in life via humanism (notwithstanding his glorious achievements in culture), by virtue of his rejection of absolutes. Though I do not agree with Schaeffer's view of neutrality (as opposed to presuppositionalism), he does adequately describe the predicament of man when in a state of independence from God.

The following quote is something that Schaeffer would definitely agree with:

"What are you driven by? What really gets you up out of bed in the morning? When everything around you seems to fall apart and life doesn't seem to work, what anchors you? Is it things that you see (circumstances as they appear to you) or is it something that you hear (God's promise) that determines things for you? Is it something inside of you or something external to you, a word that comes from outside completely challenging your experience of things? Are you driven by power, wealth, ambition, self-esteem, the acceptance of others? Or perhaps by nobler things, like making the world a better place, loving God and your neighbor, a sense of purpose and meaning?...While affirming the importance of having clear goals and a worthy focus in life, I am urging us to put purposes in their place, as servants of promise. No longer under the law's condemnation, the justified are free now to respond to God's commands out of thanksgiving for the God whose character it displays and out of love for our neighbors. The gospel saves us, giving us reason to walk through the wilderness to the promised land, and the law guides us, giving us directions for that journey. Christians are driven by God's promises, and directed by God's purposes." (Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009], 133, italics original).

The Turk-ey Affair

If you haven't been aware of the recent rave in the "Reformed blogosphere" then allow me to give you a heads up: Frank Turk of the famed blog, Pyromaniacs—a John MacArthurian, Baptist blog—has written an open letter to Dr. Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn, decrying his and his gang's seeming overemphasis on the indicative and imperative paradigm, in effect neglecting to admonish their supporters to "desire" the manifestation of "fruit" in their lives.

The following responses have been adequate in putting Turk in his rightful place:

Jason Hood, Frank Turk, Dane Ortlund, Mike Horton, and Antinomianism (UPDATE 3)

The Fear of Antinomianism

A Response to Frank Turk's Open Letter

The following thread also exists in the Puritan Board where this issue is discussed: Open Letter to Michael Horton Pyromaniacs

I wrote the following comments in the said thread:

The Frank Turk guy's main argument hinges on his "subjunctive" mood treatment, which he sees has been left out in the Horton Gang's emphasis on the imperative and the indicative. It's basically a straw man, since the indicative is precisely why the subjunctive fuels the implementation of the imperative. Turk would do well to heed a fellow, though much informed, Baptist, D.A. Carson: Underdog Theology: D.A. Carson on a Species of Perfectionism

What does Calvin say about grounding the assurance of salvation on one's good works?

"Now if we ask in what way the conscience can be made quiet before God, we shall find the only way to be that unmerited righteousness be conferred upon us as a gift of God. Let us ever bear in mind Solomon's question: "Who will say, 'I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin'?" [Prov. 20:9]. Surely there is no one who is not sunken in infinite filth! Let even the most perfect man descend into his conscience and call his deeds to account, what then will be the outcome for him? Will he sweetly rest as if all things were well composed between him and God and not, rather, be torn by dire torments, since if he judged by works, he will feel grounds for condemnation within himself? The conscience, if it looks to God, must either have sure peace with his judgment or be besieged by the terrors of hell. Therefore we profit nothing in discussing righteousness unless we establish a righteousness so steadfast that it can support our soul in the judgment of God....For no one can ever confidently trust in it [one's obedience—M.H.] because no one will ever come to be really convinced in his own mind that he has satisfied the law, as surely no one ever fully satisfied it through works....First, then, doubt would enter the minds of all men, and at length despair, while each one reckoned for himself how great a weight of debt still pressed upon him, and how far away he was from the condition laid down for him. See faith already oppressed and extinguished!...Therefore, on this point [assurance—M.H.] we must establish, and as it were, deeply fix all our hope, paying no regard to our works, to seek any help from them...For, as regards justification, faith is something merely passive, bringing nothing of ours [not even repentance and a determination of the will to obey—M.H.] to the recovering of God's favor but receiving from Christ that which we lack" (Institutes, 3.13.3—5, cited in Michael Horton, Christ the Lord, p. 52—53).

and

Turk may indeed believe that [i.e., justification by faith], but he adds the qualifier that the justified must necessarily bear fruit, so therefore the assurance of one's salvation, for him, must be buttressed by the presence of good works. I think this is the meat of his argument, for which he criticizes Horton, i.e. Horton and the Gang's lack of emphasis on "fruits." But then even Calvin (see quote above) sees the precarious nature of basing one's assurance of salvation on the presence of good works since the manifestation of good works is prone to ebb and flow (Romans 7).

I think Turk's weakness is his appeal to an abstraction of what the justified must possess in terms of attributes and properties for the label to stick.

Whereas, the Reformed consensus is that the "just shall live by faith," with faith defined as noticia + assensus + fiducia (no works there), Turk seems to prefer the following, "the just shall live by faith and prove their faith by good works." But then how much good works is enough to prove a state of justification?

The soundness of the indicative + imperative paradigm is that the knowledge of who you are in Christ as founded upon His person and work (indicative) is precisely the gratitude-producing impetus to obedience (imperative).

Some Reflections on Divine Providence

What better way to start off my blog this year than with some reflections on divine providence, and what better source of Scripture's teaching on the subject as understood by the Reformed consensus than the fifth chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith?

As the father of a 6 yr. old daughter and a 2 1/2 yr. old son—with another child in its 8th week of brewing who I hope will  be a boy so that I could name him "Cauvin Paul"—providence has weighed heavily upon my mind these days. I must also confess that I am of the sort that is not endowed with a measure of imperviousness to anxiety and worry, especially as pertaining to the welfare of my family, so reviewing Scripture's teachings on this subject has been a tremendous comfort to my soul.

Christmas and the Gift of Humanity

If there's one more lesson to be derived from Christmas then it must be the truth of God's magnanimous declaration that His physical creation is good and that Christ's putting on of human flesh is the guarantee that the physical bodies of His saints, along with the whole of the created order, shall finally be saved and delivered from the tyranny of sin through the bearing in His physical body of its pains, terrors and penalty, both in His perfectly righteous life and in His atoning death.

Another is that when Christ took on the Curse the very moment His newborn infant lungs started breathing air and when He suffered through its harsh realities as He grew in strength and stature as a man (like each and every one of us), He showcased to the universe what a human being was supposed to be, something that only He as the Second Adam could accomplish.

In effect God, in Christ, was giving us back the gift of humanity by becoming human Himself—something that should elicit in us the same praise and worship that it did in the heavenly host, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" (Luke 2:14).

The Gift of Gifts

O Source of All Good,

  What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts,
  thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
  my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
  his self-emptying incomprehensible,
  his infinity of love beyond the heart's grasp.
Herein is wonder of wonders:
  he came below to raise me above,
  was born like me that I might become like him.
Herein is love;
  when I cannot rise to him he draws near on
    wings of grace,
  to raise me to himself.
Herein is power;
  when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
  he united them in indissoluble unity,
    the uncreated and the created.
Herein is wisdom;
  when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
  and no intellect to devise recovery,
  he came, God-incarnate, to save me
    to the uttermost,
  as man to die my death,
  to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
  to work out a perfect righteousness for me.
O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, 
    and enlarge my mind;
  let me hear good tidings of great joy,
    and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore
    my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
    my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;
  place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
    to look with them upon my Redeemer's face,
    and in him account myself delivered from sin;
  let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child
    to my heart,
  embrace him with undying faith,
  exulting that he is mine and I am his.
In him thou hast given me so much
    that heaven can give no more.

— The Valley of Vision, Edited by Arthur Bennett (Edinburgh, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975).

Mortification, Faith, and the American Pitbull Terrier

One of the reasons why I inveterately adore the American Pitbull Terrier—and probably why most fanciers fancy them as well—is that this breed possesses the traits of gameness and tenacity at a level far above all other breeds. The pitbull, at least those that come from reputable, tested stock, will not back down from a challenge and will keep coming back for more in spite of injury or trouble to itself.

Another reason why I love "pits" is that they remind me of the tenacity and gameness required in the Christian life. The fallen world, the devil, and most especially our own remaining propensity for sin necessitate our incessant coming back to Christ. This "keep coming back for more" virtue in the Christian is called faith, and John Owen tells us that we are to "by faith ponder on this, that though you are no way able in or by yourself to get the conquest over your distemper, though you are even weary of contending, and are utterly ready to faint, yet that there is enough in Jesus Christ to yield you relief (Phil. 4:13)" and "Christ tells us that we obtain purging grace by abiding in him (John 15:3). To act faith upon the fullness that is in Christ for our supply is an eminent way of abiding in Christ, for both our insition [engraftment] and abode is by faith (Rom. 11:19-20)." [1]

Let the following reflections be fuel for your continued "scratching" back to Christ:

"I am a poor, weak, creature; unstable as water, I cannot excel. This corruption is too hard for me, and is at the very door of ruining my soul; and what to do I know not. My soul is becomes as parched ground, and an habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them; vows and engagements have been as a thing of naught. Many persuasions have I had that I had got the victory and should be delivered, but I am deceived; so that I plainly see, that without some eminent succor and assistance, I am lost, and shall be prevailed on to an utter relinquishment of God. But yet, though this be my state and condition, let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and the feeble knees be strengthened. Behold, the Lord Jesus Christ, that has all fullness of grace in his heart [John 1:16], all fullness of power in his hand [Matt. 28:18], he is able to slay all these his enemies. There is sufficient provision in him for  my relief and assistance. He can take my drooping, dying soul and make me more than a conqueror [Rom. 8:37].

'Why do you say, O my soul, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Have you not known, have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint' (Isa. 40:27-31).

He can make the 'dry, parched ground of my soul to become a pool, and my thirsty, barren heart as springs of water'; yea, he can make this 'habitation of dragons,' this heart, so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations, to be a place for 'grass' and fruit to himself (Isa. 35:7)." [2]

Footnotes:
[1] John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Justin Taylor [Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 131-132).
[2] Ibid., 132.

Looking to Christ + Loving Sin = Futility

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone. The recovery of the doctrine of justification was the crowning achievement of the Reformation, and the Gospel is the good news not only for the unbelieving sinner but for the believing one as well.

But in our daily looking to Christ for the assurance of our salvation—which, the Reformers taught, is of the essence of faith—are we perhaps missing a key ingredient? Do we look to Christ in the manner with which the Apostle Paul did in his description of the normal Christian life in Romans 7, i.e., in utter abhorrence of the sin that still clings to him like a strapped-on carcass, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:24-25)?

John Owen strips off our cloaks of deceitful comfort in the ff. statements:

"When men are wounded by sin, disquieted and perplexed, and knowing that there is no remedy for them but only in the mercies of God, through the blood of Christ, do therefore look to him, and to the promises of the covenant in him, and thereupon quiet their hearts that it shall be well with them, and that God will be exalted, that he may be gracious to them, and yet their souls are not wrought to the greatest detestation of the sin or sins upon the account whereof they are disquieted—this is to heal themselves, and not to be healed of God...When men do truly 'look upon Christ whom they have pierced,' without which there is no healing or peace, they will 'mourn' (Zech. 12:10); they will mourn for him, even upon this account, and detest the sin that pierced him.....Now this, I say, if it be done according to the mind of God, and in the strength of that Spirit which is poured out on believers, it will beget a detestation of that sin or sins for which healing and peace is sought.....When God comes home to speak peace in a sure covenant of it, it fills the soul with shame for all the ways whereby it has been alienated from him. And one of the things that the apostle mentions as attending that godly sorrow which is accompanied with repentance unto salvation, never to be repented of, is revenge: 'Yea, what revenge!' (2 Cor. 7:11).....he must come to self-abhorrency if he come to healing.....Let a man make what application he will for healing and peace, let him do it to the true Physician, let him do it the right way, let him quiet his heart in the promises of the covenant; yet, when peace is spoken, if it not be attended with the detestation and abhorrency of that sin which was the wound and caused the disquietment, this is no peace of God's creating, but of our own purchasing.....For instance, you find your heart running out after the world, and it disturbs you in your communion with God; the Spirit speaks expressly to you—'He that loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him' [1 John 2:15]. This puts you on dealing with God in Christ for the healing of your soul, the quieting of your conscience; but yet, withal, a thorough detestation of the evil itself abides not upon you; yea, perhaps that is liked well enough, but only in respect of the consequences of it. Perhaps you may be saved, yet as through fire, and God will have some work with you before he has done; but you will have little peace in this life—you will be sick and fainting all your days (Isa. 57:17). This is a deceit that lies at the root of the peace of many professors and wastes it. They deal with all their strength about mercy and pardon, and seem to have great communion with God in their so doing; they lie before him, bewail their sins and follies, that anyone would think, yea, they think themselves, that surely they and their sins are now parted; and so receive in mercy that satisfies their hearts for a little season. But when a thorough search comes to be made, there has been some secret reserve for the folly or follies treated about—at least, there has not been that thorough abhorrency of it which is necessary; and their whole peace is quickly discovered to be weak and rotten, scarce abiding any longer than the words of begging it are in their mouths." (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Justin Taylor [Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 119-121).

Sobering words for the sin-parched pilgrim.

In Defense of Hell: Six Arguments Against Annihilationism

"In the first place, the amount of time spent in wrongdoing is often irrelevant in determining the sentence. As I write these words, police in London are looking for thugs who attacked a forty-five year old man in broad daylight, almost severed his arm with a billhook, pummelled him with a baseball bat and sprayed hydrochloric acid in his face. The assault was all over in less than a minute; would sixty seconds in jail be an appropriate sentence? As William Hendriksen says, 'It is not necessarily the duration of the crime that fixes the duration of the punishment...What is decisive is the nature of the crime.'

The Utility of Indwelling Sin

Indwelling sin—it is the scourge of the Christian life, even more so than the world or the devil. Though the Christian has been made a partaker of the nature of Christ through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, still, absolute freedom from sin is not to be had in this present age.

To be sure, it is the Christian's duty to be mortifying sin in his life, as far as he is aware of particular instances of dominance. However, it may come as some comfort to know that this enemy has both a God-glorifying and man-benefiting function, the knowledge of which can never be a warrant for lawlessness, but is actually the impetus behind the pedagogical use of the Law.

John Owen writes,

"To mortify sin is not utterly to kill, root it out, and destroy it, that it should have no more hold at all nor residence in our hearts. It is true this is that which is aimed at; but this is not in this life to be accomplished. There is no man that truly sets himself to mortify any sin, but he aims at, intends, desires its utter destruction, that it should leave neither root nor fruit in the heart or life. He would so kill it that it should never more nor stir anymore, cry or call, seduce or tempt, to eternity. Its not-being is the thing aimed at. Now, though doubtless there may, by the Spirit and grace of Christ, a wonderful success and eminency of victory against any sin be attained, so that a man may have almost constant triumph over it, yet an utter killing and destruction of it, that it should not be, is not in this life to be expected. This Paul assures us of: 'Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect' (Phil. 3:12). He was a choice saint, a pattern for believers, who, in faith and love, and all the fruits of the Spirit, had not his fellow in the world, and on that account ascribes perfection to himself in comparison of others (v. 15); yet he had not 'attained,' he was not 'perfect,' but was 'following after' (v. 12): still a vile body he had, and we have, that must be changed by the great power of Christ at last (v. 21). This we would have; but God sees it best for us that we should be complete in nothing in ourselves, that in all things we must be 'complete in Christ,' which is best for us (Col. 2:10)" (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kelly M. Kapic & Justin Taylor [Illinois: Crossway, 2006], 69-70, italics original, emphasis mine).