A review of MacArthur’s biography

Tim Challies offers his thoughts on Iain Murray’s latest biography.

I can’t wait to read it myself.

Here’s the publisher’s description

Through more than forty years, John MacArthur has opened and taught the Word of God in one local congregation, Grace Community Church, Los Angeles. Consequences have followed which no one anticipated, and which the preacher attributes to “the sovereign hand of God”. A people united to Christ, and to their pastor, became a channel for blessing across the earth. It has been a ministry marked by characteristics that re-appear in every spiritual advance – not concern for “relevance”; not special attractions for young or old, male or female; but love for God and dependence on his Word and promises. MacArthur has proved, without ever intending to do so, that true preaching of the Word of God is international, “because if you teach the Bible it transcends every border, every language, every culture. It is as relevant today, and will be tomorrow, as in all the years since God put it down.” That is why his sermons are heard or read in more than two hundred countries around the world today.

But this is also a human story, including the shaping of his youth, the strength of marriage and family, the refining influence of trials and controversies, and the building of a man whose staff have never known to be angry. There are friends who, for all their love of his ministry, say his life is his best sermon.

You can get it here or here.

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A lesson on laziness

Do you struggle with laziness? Are you a procrastinator?  What’s the book of Proverbs say about this? Want some biblical teaching on this issue?

Here’s a helpful overview  from Proverbs on the consequences, the characteristics, and the cure for laziness.

It’s worth looking at today. . . or you could wait I guess till tomorrow if you don’t feel like it right now.

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Praying. . . with Spurgeon

“Arnold Dallimore, in his enjoyable biography of Charles Spurgeon, recounts the following about the Prince of Preachers’ prayer life: “He talked with God in reverence but with freedom and familiarity.” Freedom and familiarity: watchwords of true prayer. These two words prove an example of what balanced prayer should look like for the Christian. Unfortunately such balance is often toppled leaving Christians to slide from one or the other of the two extremes.

For instance, Christians can become too familiar with God in prayer that they descend into a bog of irreverence. A dear pastor-friend of mine once told me of an experience he had in seminary as he and a fellow student were at prayer. This student began their devotional time by telling God a joke! My friend had no idea how to respond, and I can only imagine the difficulty he had continuing on in prayer with this misguided brother. It is indeed a glorious truth that Christians share an intimacy with their Father, even being able to call Him “Abba.” And it is also true that we have free and easy access to the throne of grace because Jesus is seated on it at the Father’s right hand and we approach God through Him. It is mistaken, however, to abuse this truth and treat God as though he were just one of us. Although the apostles knew well the freedom they had in Christ, they also recognized that God should be approached “acceptably with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).

On the other hand, a formality foreign to the New Testament can creep into prayer that strips it of its vitality. Cold prayers are the products of stony hearts. It has been said, “What the heart thinks the tongue clinks.” What do we think of God if our prayers are so bland? While there can be a true beauty to the written prayers of the liturgical traditions, if they are not empassioned by a heart affected by the Spirit of God they are as lifeless as a rotting carp that’s washed upon the shore of some beautiful lake.

May it be said of us as it was of Spurgeon: “Prayer was the instinct of his soul and the atmosphere of his life. It was his ‘vital breath’ and ‘native air.’ He sped on eagle wings into the heaven of God.”

–Sola Scriptura Ministries

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How sanctification works

Jerry Bridges comments on how our growth in holiness is both a work of the Spirit and involves our hard work. Same truth as found in Philippians 2:12-13.

“We take what we think are the tools of spiritual transformation into our own hands and try to sculpt ourselves into robust Christlike specimens. But spiritual transformation is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit. He is the Master Sculptor” (11).

“Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us whereby our inner being is progressively changed, freeing us more and more from sinful traits and developing within us over time the virtues of Christlike character. However, though sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, it does involve our wholehearted response in obedience and the regular use of the spiritual disciplines that are instruments of sanctification” (94).

Quotes from The Discipline of Grace

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