Justin Taylor is telling the world that John Piper’s new book, What Jesus Demands from the World, is now available online as a free PDF download from Desiring God’s website.

I started browsing the book when it was first available on Crossway’s website, and I immediately flagged it for myself as a must-read, based on this wonderful thought from the very start of the introduction:

The aim of this book is God-glorifying obedience to Jesus. To that end I am seeking to obey Jesus’ last command: “Make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). Jesus’ final command was to teach all his commandments.

The Impossible Final Command
Actually, the final command was more precise than that. He did not say, “Teach them all my commandments.” He said, “Teach them to observe all my commandments.” You can teach a parrot all of Jesus’ commandments. But you cannot teach a parrot to observe them. Parrots will not repent, and worship Jesus, and lay up treasures in heaven, and love their enemies, and go out like sheep in the midst of wolves to herald the kingdom of God.

Amen! Now go download the book. Then go buy the book. Somewhere in there, read the book. And email me and say “James, have you read it yet? No? Shame on you!”

Link: Between Two Worlds: Piper: What Jesus Demands from the World

On my drive in to work this morning, I was thinking about my sin – my ongoing struggle against sin that I face every moment of every day of my life.

There are some particular sins that I’ve been dealing with lately, to be sure. But not only that, there is also the neverending battle with the fact that I do sin – what might be called my “sinful nature.” What Paul would call the “flesh.” When I think of my sin like I did this morning, I can’t help but think, I just can’t deal with it.

I think this is what drives the “self-help” industry, why it is so successful. One article states that for 1998 (almost ten years ago), self-help book sales hit $581 million. The prevailing mentality is that we can deal with most of it ourselves, we just need a little help. We can handle 90% of our problems, it’s that last 10% we have real difficulty with. Or maybe we can deal with 80%, but 20% give us trouble. Maybe we’re in really bad shape, and we can only deal with 5% of our problems.

Me? I just can’t deal with it at all. I can’t deal with my sin. I just can’t. Not 90%. Not 80%. Not even 5%. Not even .0001%. I can’t.

Most of time, I think I can deal with it. I fool myself all of the time into thinking that I just need help with my sin. I think, “I can deal with it, I just need a little bit (or even a lot) of help.” But the truth is, I just can’t deal with it.

Sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s actually the most hopeful thing I’ve ever learned in life. The truth is, I can’t deal with it. I am completely incapable of dealing with my sin. Left to my own devices, I am utterly and totally helpless. I just can’t deal with it.

But Christ can.

And He did.

And He does.

Romans 7:24-25

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (ESV)

I, like Paul, cannot deal with my sin. I cannot deal with my sin, “waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:23) But like Paul, I praise God that Christ delivers me from this body of death. That He dealt with my sin, and He continues to deal with it in me.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

- “It Is Well With My Soul,” Horatio Spafford, 1873

I’ve not been very good about posting lately to my blog, and I’ve been even more lax about having a Random Thoughts posting. So, without further ado…

Election Debate (No, Not for November…)

At this year’s Pastor’s Conference for the Southern Baptist Conference, there was a (friendly) debate on election between Albert Mohler and Paige Patterson. The audio is finally available online. Also, Justin Taylor’s newly redesigned site has a post on a survey done on Calvinism in the SBC.

Lordship Salvation

Pulpit Magazine has started a series on Lordship salvation vs. No-Lordship (a/k/a “Free Grace” or easy-believism) salvation. This was the issue that John MacArthur addressed in The Gospel According to Jesus. The series begins with an intro to the concept of Lordship salvation, and has been followed up by a passage from Zane Hodges, who is a big advocate of the no-Lordship side. The short version:

To put it simply, the gospel call to faith presupposes that sinners must repent of their sin and yield to Christ’s authority. This, in a nutshell, is what is commonly referred to as lordship salvation.

Speaking of the Lordship of Christ…

Phil Johnson has posted a very personal and very moving account of his personal testimony, subtitled “How I Got Drawn into the Lordship Debate.”

Grace To You Coming to TV

Speaking of John MacArthur, I just visited the Grace To You website, and they are announcing that Grace To You will be coming to television starting this Sunday, on DirecTV.

John Chrysostom on Gender Roles

On the Together for the Gospel blog, Ligon Duncan (also Chairman of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) posts a great passage from John Chrysostom, who lived in the 4th/5th century.

Is Scripture Clear?

SharperIron has a discussion of the perspicuity of scripture, including (clear) scriptural references, and a summary of Luther’s arguments on the subject.

Free Stuff is Always Good

If you use Libronix, Logos, “eBible”, etc. (it’s all the same), then Justin Taylor has some links for you – free John Owen (and Jonathan Edwards) content. (I haven’t downloaded them yet, myself, but I will be!) He also has a collection of links on using the Puritans in your own Bible study. (And if Justin isn’t on your blogroll, let me just say “SHAME!”)

And Last But Definitely Not Least…

One of the best things I’ve read in a while is this discussion from Tim Challies on prayer. Moving, convicting, encouraging, inspiring. Thank you, Tim!

There is a tendency in the church today to question everything, even the very foundations of our faith – the deity and lordship of Christ, the sovereignty of God, the inerrance of the scriptures.

But these things are indeed nothing new under the sun. Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs regularly posts selections from Charles Spurgeon about how he, too, fought the same fights against the encroachment of the liberal theologies of his day. Spurgeon understood his place as a minister of the word enough to know that he could not question or reformulate those basics, as shown in today’s dose of Spurgeon:

The old truth that Calvin preached, that Chrysostom preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be a liar to my conscience and my God. I can not shape the truth.

Spurgeon wrote those words in 1858, but they still apply to the church today. I was reminded of the timelessness of these ideas this evening, while reading Matthew Henry’s commentary on 1 Timothy, from the early 1700′s:

As among the Jews there were some who brought Judaism into Christianity; so among the Gentiles there were some who brought paganism into Christianity. ‘Take heed of these,’ says he, ‘watch against them, or they will be the corrupting and ruining of religion among you, for they minister questions rather than edifying.’ That which ministers questions is not for edifying; that which gives occasion for doubtful disputes pulls down the church rather than builds it up.

Do not minister questions. Do not shape the truth. Preach the truth of the gospel, in season and out of season.

Albert Mohler has a particularly insightful commentary on The Problem of Preaching to Felt Needs:

…preachers who believe they can move the attention of individuals from their ‘felt’ needs to their need for the Gospel will find, inevitably, that the distance between the individual and the Gospel has not been reduced by attention to lesser needs. The sinner’s need for Christ is a need unlike all other needs — and the satisfaction of having other needs stroked and affirmed is often a hindrance to the sinner’s understanding of the Gospel.

There is one great need that Christ fulfills – our need for salvation from sin. Who “needs” Christ with the all the self-help available in our culture of pop therapy? Only those who realize that we cannot help ourselves, only Christ can.

Crossway is now taking pre-orders for What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper, due to be released September 26th.

This promises to be an outstanding read, but don’t take my word for it – browse the entire book online now, and find out for yourself! Just look for the section about halfway down that says “Browse the Full Text of This Book.”

Adrian Warnock is studying Proverbs, and wonders, Are Bloggers Scoffers?:

As I was reading these proverbs through again today, I fear that we could easily switch the word “scoffer” for the word “blogger.” These proverbs have so much in them to challenge the Christian blogging community. How easily could we write — “Bloggers set a city aflame,” or “. . . a blogger doesn’t listen to a rebuke,” or “whoever corrects a blogger gets himself abuse,” or dare I say it — “Blogger is the name of the arrogant haughty man who acts with arrogant pride.” I do not say this merely to rebuke other bloggers — I am only too well aware of these tendencies in myself.

Where is the line between rebuke and scoffing? Is sarcasm ever appropriate? What about the “watch-bloggers”? What about wrongful accusations of scoffing? Where is the line between humor and sarcasm?

Albert Mohler blogs today on the Time cover story about the Prosperity gospel (“Health and Wealth”, “Word of Faith”, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, etc.):

Does God Want Us to Be Rich? TIME Looks at Prosperity Theology:

The saddest aspect of that question is its focus on material prosperity at the expense of the limitless spiritual riches we are given in Christ. The problem with prosperity theology is not that it promises too much, but that it promises so little — and promises that so falsely.

Of even greater significance is the eclipse of the authentic Gospel of Christ. The justification of sinners is ignored as material prosperity and wealth dominate the message.

He promises to continue the topic with a discussion on “The problem of preaching to felt needs,” which hopefully will take it farther than just the whole prosperity aberration and include some of the self-help nonsense that is out there in the church today, as well. That would certainly lead well into the NANC conference coming up next month here in Indy…

I was writing a post this evening about something else, and I started a section with “a little about my background…” It quickly became obvious that this was not going to be “a little,” nor was it going to be simply about “my background,” it was going to be my full-out testimony. And so, here it is…

The Early Years…

I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic church in a heavily Catholic area. I did not even hear of a “Protestant” until I moved from Catholic school to public school in the 2nd grade. I continued in the Catholic church, going to Catechism classes, having my First Communion, and eventually, confirmation. After confirmation, as a freshman in high school, I started serving as a lector in the church, occasionally doing the Sunday readings from the Old Testament and the Epistles.

But Wait…

I also started reading the Bible more on my own, even though it was never studied as part of any of the instruction I was receiving as a Catholic. I started to see things in the church that were inconsistent with the scriptures (more on this later). How could the church be based on the Bible, if it didn’t follow the Bible? And so, I rejected my Catholic faith and left the church. It never occurred to me to look for a different kind of church, so I just went on my merry way.

College, Where I Demonstrate How Smart I Am…

Next, came college. I went to a large public university to study, and for the first time, I encountered these strange people called “born again” Christians, or “Evangelicals.” To me, “born again” Christians were only televangelists, and the people who were suckered into sending them money. I was, of course, far too intelligent for that.

I had some friends who were Evangelicals, and they would always tell me about the wonderful things that Jesus did in their life. But my life was just fine, so why did I need Jesus? Sadly, they never told me that part. They said how cool Jesus was in their life, but never why I needed Him. They never told me why I couldn’t live without Him, let alone why I couldn’t live eternally without Him. Oh, sure, they explained that you couldn’t get into heaven without Him, but other than “because the Bible says so,” they never were able to explain why you couldn’t get into heaven without Him. I often said, “You can’t tell me Gandhi isn’t in heaven… He didn’t believe in Jesus, and it didn’t make any difference to him.” This usually ended the argument.

After College, Where Some Stuff Happens

If I thought about God very little in college (and I did), I thought about Him even less afterward. There was too much to do. Work to be done, fun to be had. Eventually, I met someone and got married. It didn’t work out. We ended up divorcing after about 4 years. It was a mutual decision, and it was perfectly amicable. Looking back, it is amazing how lightly we entered into marriage, and just as lightly divorced.

After that, I started to realize that I was missing something pretty important in my life. My divorce wasn’t traumatic or anything, I just started to think, “what am I doing with my life?” So I started looking around, studying about a number of different religions, and even started looking again at Christianity. After all, I was open-minded, and smart, right?

But, There’s a Problem With This Christianity Thing…

This is when I came back to that same old problem. I was willing, in my “growth,” to concede that Jesus could be a way to heaven, but surely Jesus and Christianity wasn’t the only way to heaven, right? I mean, surely we wouldn’t even have these other religions if they couldn’t get you to heaven, right?

Here’s the interesting part about this:

I never had any problem with the idea of the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

I was raised, as a Catholic, to believe that the Bible was indeed the Word of God. And I believed that. I can’t emphasize this enough – I never had any issue with the idea that the Bible is God’s Word. The only problem was, like most Catholics, unfortunately, I’d never read very much of it at all.

So, back to the problem at hand. Surely Jesus wasn’t the only way to heaven, right? I mean, come on, the Bible didn’t actually say that, that’s just someone reading something into the text, right? The Bible was mostly poetic stuff anyway, hard to understand, right? Right?

So, Let’s Look and See What the Bible Actually Says…

Well, at this point, I actually had some friends who got me reading the Bible a little bit. Just a little, and mostly just enough to debate them. (Remember, I was smart, right?) And I started reading really interesting stuff. Like John 3:16. Everyone, Christian or not, knows John 3:16:

John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)

Everyone knows that. But that didn’t mean that you couldn’t have everlasting life some other way, right? Well… For the first time, I read beyond that. John 3:17:

John 3:17

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (ESV)

AHA! I was RIGHT! God did NOT send His son to condemn the world! HAHA! We were all off the hook! And then, just to be sure, I continued on to John 3:18:

John 3:18

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (ESV)

Whoa. Time out. Let me read that again.

John 3:18

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (ESV)

Hang on a minute. What in the world was this? “He who does not believe is condemned already“??? “Because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”???

That sounded like… No, couldn’t be. I was reading that wrong. Because, um, that sounded like Jesus is the only way to heaven. I’m, um, I’m smart, right? No, I was reading that wrong. Let’s check some cross references, see what they say. Yeah, they’ll clear that right up.

So I started looking at what the Bible says about “salvation.” I started doing (smart guy that I am) some research into what else the Bible says about Jesus and being saved.

John 14:6

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (ESV)

Now wait a minute, that just meant that Jesus is the one who decides, right? That didn’t mean you have to have faith in Jesus. Of course, together with John 3:18… Nah. Let’s keep looking.

Acts 4:12

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (ESV)

OK, I didn’t particularly care for where this was going… I mean, this looked more and more like, well, Jesus is the only way to heaven.

The Verse

And then came the clincher… A verse I had never encountered before in my life, even when people would “witness” to me. Brothers and sisters in Christ, especially those who have been saved since their youth, get ready to laugh at this one, because here is the big “mystery verse”…

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (ESV)

Yeah. That’s the one.

This verse opened my eyes to two important truths about Christ…

1. We are saved through faith. It’s not just that we “have to believe” in order to be saved, though that is true. But it’s not, “Step 1, Believe. Step 2, Get saved.” It’s that we are saved through faith. Faith is the means of our salvation. Faith in Christ is not merely a condition for our salvation – it is our salvation.

2. The other truth that this verse opened my eyes to was this: Salvation is nothing that we do. It’s not a reward for anything we’ve done. It’s not because of anything we do at all. It’s because of, first of all, God’s grace. And secondly, it’s “not of works.” And that was a real clincher. That blew away 15 or so years of Catholicism. “Not of works.” That answers all of those questions I had when I left the Catholic church. Questions like “If Jesus died for our sins, then why do we go to confession…?” “If Jesus is the one who paid the price for our sins, then why do I have to say ten Hail Marys?”

“You have been saved through faith.”

So, it’s not just that “Jesus is the only way to heaven,” though that’s true. It’s that anyone who gets to heaven gets there via one and only one way, “through faith.” Faith in whom? Jesus.

One of the very next things I learned about God and Christ and the Holy Spirit: They are watching. And They… will… drop you… big… hints. As Christ told Paul on the road to Damascus, it is not easy to kick against “the goads” (prods). But oh, how we try.

Yeah, But Surely There’s Not Just One Way, Right?

At this point I had come to the realization that yes, the Bible does teach that Jesus is the one way to God. So, of course, I started looking for some other rationalization. I couldn’t use “that’s not in the Bible” any more. I really couldn’t use “that’s just your interpretation” any more, either. So, I had to find something new. Off to the bookstore! I thought I would look through the Christianity books, and see if I couldn’t find someone giving a good, logical argument for why Jesus was not the only way, and that there was not just One Way.

And one of the books I happened across was titled, Why One Way? OK… I was smart, right? I could poke some holes in this guy’s arguments, right? How smart could “John MacArthur” be? How well could he know his Bible?

If you’re at all familiar with Dr. MacArthur, you’re already laughing. If you’re not, pick up anything he’s written. I might suggest starting with this same book, Why One Way? Defending an Exclusive Claim in an Inclusive World. It’s a very short read, only 96 pages, and I read the whole thing that night in the bookstore. In it, MacArthur engages in a very rational and very biblical discussion of the exclusivity of Christ. And I was convinced… intellectually. But come on, regular “Christians” don’t really express their faith that way, do they? I mean, that stuff is just for preachers and guys who write books, right?

Time for another goad.

But Does It Work In Practice?

Having decided to get the MacArthur book, I took one more quick pass through the Christianity section of the bookstore before heading to the checkout. And there, on the other side of the chest-high shelf, was a woman, probably in her late 40′s, looking at books with her daughter. And it was clear from their conversation they were “born again” Christians.

And then, a man of Middle Eastern appearance struck up a conversation with the mom. He was asking about her beliefs, and explaining that he was a follower of the “Baha’i Faith,” which teaches that all religions lead to God and are therefore equally true.

Here we go. Let’s see this woman challenge this guy. I mean, that would be just rude. That would be wrong. That would be intolerant.

Well, she wasn’t rude. She wasn’t wrong. But she was “intolerant.” She said she was sorry he felt that way, but that she was a Christian, and that the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and that all other religions were, and must be, false. Again, she wasn’t rude about it. She wasn’t impolite. But she was perfectly calm, and perfectly straightforward, and perfectly true.

Getting, and Getting, the Gospel

In the period surrounding that evening, I read a lot and talked with Christian friends a lot. I also learned a lot. I learned about this idea called “the Gospel.” Growing up Catholic, the Gospel, to me, meant one of the 4 books written by the apostles, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those are the Gospels, right?

No, this was a different Gospel. What Mark Dever refers to as “God, Man, Christ, Response.”:

1. God is both our sovereign Creator and our righteous Judge.
2. Man was created by God, in God’s image, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But man sinned against God by disobeying His holy law. Man therefore separated himself from God’s holy and satisfying presence, and incurred His wrathful displeasure.
3. Jesus Christ’s death was the substitute payment for the penalty that we deserved for our sin. His death is God’s only provision for the forgiveness of man’s sin and the appeasement of God’s wrath against him.
4. We are called to respond to this good news in repentance and belief – turning away from our sin and self-sufficiency toward God, and trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ as the substitute penalty that we deserved for our sin.

(From the slide show Mark 3: A Biblical Understanding of the Good News, Lesson D: What are the essential elements of the Gospel?)

Saved! Now What?

And at some point soon after this, I asked Christ to be my Savior. I then was ready to take the next steps… Um, what were the next steps? I had no idea. Nor could I really find anything.

So, I wandered around fairly aimlessly for a few years. I still stayed in my sin, not realizing how or why that was wrong (after all, I was saved, right?). I didn’t understand what to do next, or even where to go to find out.

Life Intervenes…

Eventually, I met someone special. Her name was (and still is) Shannon, and we became serious, and talk started (pretty early on) about marriage. And I told her I had one condition – that I wouldn’t marry her until she shared my faith (even though that wasn’t very well defined at this point – I knew enough to know that I trusted Christ for my salvation, and that I wanted to follow Him, I just didn’t know how).

…And So Does God!

Well, at some point later, the miraculous happened, as it always does, through the grace of God. Shannon said she wanted to find a church to raise her daughter (my future stepdaughter), and we looked around, and started attending a local Bible church near the house we had built together. And somewhere in there, Shannon was saved. We married shortly thereafter, and we continue to grow in our faith today.

There is, of course, much more to say about my faith, and that is part of the purpose of this blog. This was just a discussion of how I got here to this point. Keep listening, and I’ll be happy to tell you more and more about where I am and where I’m going. And as Paul says in Philippians 3:

Philippians 3:12-14

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (ESV)

One Last Thing…

If you’ve read this far, and are thinking “hey, I am newly saved, too, and I don’t know where to go next!” Let me make a couple of quick recommendations:

1. Read your Bible. Religiously. Pun intended. Read it. ALL of it. It is that which “makes us wise for salvation.”

2. Pray. Start with before you eat. (You might already be doing this.) Add nightly, before bed. Add in the morning, when you get up. Add the shower. Add your morning and evening drive time. Add when you get a spare minute. Pray. If you need help, try the “A.C.T.S. pattern”. Or just talk to God (that counts). Or find a good topical Bible and look up what all the Bible says about prayer, and go from there.

3. Find a Bible-based church. One which is committed to teaching from the word of God. One that teaches from the Bible all the time. If the sermon starts with a newspaper article, that’s your cue to leave. Don’t even wait for the service to end. If, on the other hand, the sermon starts with a passage of scripture, and the preacher talks about that passage, explaining it, telling what it meant to whoever wrote it and his audience; then settle in, listen closely, and take notes.

4. Find a Bible-based church. Yeah this is a repeat. Point #3 was Bible-based, this is to remind you that you need a church. Some people say, “well, I can be a Christian on my own” or “my faith is a private thing.” No you can’t, and no it’s not. God says so:

Hebrews 10:24-25

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (ESV)

Other than that, may God bless you in your walk with His Glorious Son. And post a comment or drop me an email if you’ve read this far…

Jim Bublitz at OldTruth.com has a great summary of the instructions that Paul gives Timothy in the 2 epistles that bear the latter’s name. Jim pulled the list from MacArthur’s Ashamed of the Gospel, and I will no doubt crib from Jim’s copy as I assist one of our elders in a small group study of 1 Timothy over the next 9 months…

Jim summarizes the list thusly:

To sum it all up in five categories, Paul commanded Timothy: 1) to be faithful in his preaching of biblical truth; 2) to be bold in exposing and refuting error; 3) to be an example of godliness to the flock; 4) to be diligent and work hard in the ministry; and 5) to be willing to suffer hardship and persecution in his service for the Lord.