New Attitude 2008: What I learned

I have finally heard (live and in person) many of the Bible teachers whom I frequently read and to whom I frequently listen via the internet.  These mighty men of God taught me much this past May 24-May 27 at New Attitude 2008 in Louisville, Kentucky.  New Attitude is an annually held conference organized by Joshua Harris, C.J. Mahaney, Eric Simmons and many others of Sovereign Grace Ministries which is stationed in Gaithersburg, MD.  This year’s conference emphasized the sufficiency and necessity of God’s own Word.  This verse was the theme of the conference:

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD of hosts.”  Jeremiah 15:16

Session 1: Pastor Joshua Harris-Ripping, Burning Eating: A Right Response to God’s Word

 

 

Session 2: Pastor Mark Dever-The Authority of Scripture

 

 

Session 3: Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (President of SBTS)- Bible Q & A

 

 

Session 4: Pastor C.J. Mahaney-The Troubled Soul: God’s Word and Our Feelings

 

 

Session 5: Pastor Eric Simmons-What is the Point?: Growing in Vision for Diligent Study

 

 

Session 6: Pastor John Piper-William Tyndale: A Life Transformed by God’s Word

Session 7: Pastor John Piper-Fighting for Faith with God’s Word

Session 8: Pastor C.J. Mahaney-God as Father: Understanding the Doctrine of Adoption in God’s Word

 

 

Interspersed was amazingly orthodox worship through music led by Bob and Devon Kauflin and the Sovereign Grace Band. (No light show, no entertainment, just corporate worship through doctrinally sound and Christ-centered songs…)

 

 

Each morning, we met in community groups led by Sovereign Grace pastors, and family groups led by young men of Sovereign grace churches.

To top it all off, I experienced all of this in the fellowship of two dearly beloved brothers in Christ, one of many years of friendship and the other of many years of wisdom (and I hope many coming years of friendship).

Of the experience, I will say one thing I think that summarizes it:

The LORD blesses a commitment to his Word and an exaltation of his Son.

Oh, the riches of his grace…

I have ten points summarizing what the LORD taught me at Na:

1.) God is there, totally infinite, supremely valuable, immutable and holy, satisfied in his own fellowship, lacking nothing and needing nothing.

2.) God, in his own good pleasure, creates (by his word) a creation called earth and allows a created (by his word) man, aided by his helper called woman, to govern it and live in perfect fellowship with him.

3.) God, in his own good pleasure, banishes a rebellious man and woman from his paradise promising to redeem a radically depraved people out of a fallen mankind in the ages to come.

4.) God, in his own good pleasure, sovereignly chooses to make himself known by speaking.  (We serve a speaking God.)

5.) God, in his own good pleasure, sovereignly chooses men to write down his word, uniting their sinful wills to his own so that, as they write, they are kept by his power from error or imperfection.

6.)  God, in his own good pleasure, preserves his written word for centuries, until its fulfillment comes in the person of his son Jesus Christ, fully God and fully Man.

7.) God, in his own good pleasure, fulfills his written word by crushing his Christ, making him the propitiation for the sins of those found in him.

8.) God, in his own good pleasure, fulfills his written word by resurrecting his son from the dead and setting him at his own side to reign until the second advent.

9.) God, in his own good pleasure, fulfills his written word by sending his Holy Spirit into the hearts of his people, writing his law on their hearts and guarding them until the day he glorifies them for himself.

10.) God, in his own good pleasure, fulfills his written word by preserving his word in two separate testimonies, working through them by his Holy Spirit to redeem and sanctify his people until the fullness of them comes into his kingdom.

Application:  Delight, cherish and obey the words of the God who makes himself known to you through them.

How convicting, how cleansing, and how glorious!

All of the Bible is about God and what he did!  I am to come to it, expecting to delight in God, himself, through the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

I close with this quotation from Charles Spurgeon:

“Observe, concerning the first advent, that the Lord was moving in it towards man. ‘When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son.’ We moved not towards the Lord, but the Lord towards us. I do not find that the world in repentance sought after its Maker. No, but the offended God himself in infinite compassion broke the silence, and came forth to bless his enemies. All good things begin with him.”

Working with you to cherish God’s word and to love God through it,

Vince R.

Visit the new attitude website if you wish to download and listen to the sermons.  I HIGHLY suggest that you do!

http://www.newattitude.org/liveblog/

P.S.

I also want to thank Brother Hank (go read his blog at lawngospel.wordpress.com) for much insight from his own experience in his personal walk and from his first year at seminary, most especially through what he has heard from his professor, the Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Russell Moore.  Look him up!

Oh yeah,

New Attitude 2009 (Baltimore, MD).  I will pray about attending this.  The Lord just might let me go (and maybe with more people).

 

Humility and what Some Call “Calvinism”

Recently, a friend asked me to sit next to him during class.  Prior to the introductory statements from the professor, he said something to the effect of, “I want to know about Calvinism and I hear you’re the guy to see.”  I laugh now even thinking about that.   Why do I laugh?  Because I appreciate anyone’s desire to learn; it gives me joy.  But I tell you what I did.  I got so joyful that I began to mention some books that helped me, the titles waning as the professor began to speak.  I said I would make him a list of books to which he can refer.

Then, mildly attentive to the professor, I was convicted.  “Does this friend really care for truth?”  Well, I have no idea about that because I don’t know his heart, but I do know this: Why would I care to share this truth with him?  Do I really care for orthodoxy transforming someone’s walk with God and transforming their ministry or do I care more about showing how much I know?

Well, frankly, I’m a fallen man.  I am prideful and horribly arrogant, so I won’t say that I wasn’t exulting in myself at times during that short conversation.  But within momemts, the Holy Spirit was correcting me.  That’s good.

For the moment, I have not made the list of books like he asked me to do for him.  In fact, I won’t until he asks me about them again.  But right now, I think that encounter served as a reminder to my often wandering heart that God, himself, is above all things.  Not Vince, not his doctrinal understanding, and certainly not John Calvin.

I will boldly exclaim first that in my minor page-flipping through his institutes, I see a man not concerned for his name but for God and his truth.  HE DID NOT INVENT THE DOCTRINES!!!  He was a fallen man just like all of us.  The doctrines come from Scripture; not his mind.

In fact, on many points, I don’t agree with him.  I am not a Calvinist, if you define it the way it is rightly defined.  I don’t avow to infant baptism; I don’ t avow to some points of Amillenial eschatology.  I am not a follower of Calvin, I’m a follower of Christ.  The Bible doesn’t say that I am not to humble myself under the hand of Calvin; it says that I am to humble myself under the mighty hand of God.

Who, seeking to understand what they call “Calvinism” is remotely interested in that?  I hope all, but if not, I won’t waste my time.

Before I teach the doctrines SYSTEMATICALLY (because it will pepper my teachings anytime I teach because it’s only natural that it does), I must know in my heart that this person knows the Lord.  Does he have fruit suggesting that he walks closely with the most high God?  If not, he must as Spurgeon once said, “graduate from the prep school of the gospel before he can attend the university of the Doctrines of grace.”

Next, I must ask myself does this person care about God and his truth or does he care about knowledge and its degrees?

I declare boldly that I would take one John Wesley, passionately sharing the gospel and preaching God’s word, over five dead calvinists who would rather drive across the state to defend those doctrines than walk across the street to share the gospel.

The gospel of God is the main thing.  Keep it there!!!

But now you must understand that before any man can go to the unversity of the doctrines of grace he must be prepared to come to the end of himself and cherish God’s power far above his own.  He must bow his knees down lowly before God’s revealed word before he would ever bow his head mildly to his own reasoning.

That’s the fruit of a passionate man who holds to these doctrines.  He must be humble.

“If you carry your orthodoxy in pride and arrogance, you haven’t truly understood it because an accurate understanding of God and his grace humbles the soul.”  -Joshua Harris

And so as a prerequisite to any further teaching on the Doctrines of Grace, a phrase to which I prefer to refer to them,  (In fact, I don’t like the Dortian terms coined in TULIP), I want to propose that humility is required before God’s revealed word.

In this study, o seeker of deeper truth, “know thyself,” as Shakespeare once wrote.

Why do you need to take the time to know?  Do you want to grow closer to the heart of the most High or do you just want more knowledge which will further puff you up?

First, is the gospel even precious to you? If not, go back and learn it anew.  I certainly wish I had.  It would saved me a lot humiliating experiences when I forgot to keep the main thing the main thing.

And so I post a five part video of Pastor John Piper in which he exposits the humility required to believe the Doctrine of Election.  Don’t waste your time if you don’t even care about God, period.

Proceed further ONLY if you want to understand something that will transform your walk to a whole new level of humility, holiness, and godliness.  I, myself, have so much to learn, and I’ve held to these doctrines for the past three years.  Every new glimpse into God’s grace humbles me to the dust as it rightly should.

Working with you to cherish orthodoxy with humility and conviction,

Vince R.

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That’s the Amazement of Grace, AMEN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worshipping In Tune with the Standard

Like I recently said, I want to pick up the guitar.  I tried the other night, yuck! It’s so out of tune after all these years.  My piano is out of tune somewhat too so that doesn’t really work.  I’ll wait, then, until I find someone else who is closer to that “standard” of proper tuning to which we can both conform.  Hmm, sort of made me think of Tozer… 

“Has it ever occured to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?  They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.  So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes from God to strive for closer fellowship.” -A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God

You want to get closer to your brother or sister in Christ? Why don’t you both ponder the Lord?  That’ll help.

Working with you to tune together to that great Standard,

Vince R.

A Pleasing Melody to our Father…

I think I’m going to try to pick up the guitar again.  It kind of stinks knowing that you have musical understanding, a deep appreciation for the processes of it, a longing to sit by yourself and sing to the Father, and most of all to have no musical accompaniment with which to do any of it.  I can play the piano reasonably well.  (Actually, not really, but give me a good week of free time and I can learn a piece of music and play it.)

Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of time, and I don’t have that kind of instrument handy.  Piano’s are kind of big.  So then, I remembered my guitar.

Such a simple instrument:  Easy enough to carry around, and accessible enough to retreive for a good interval of completely wasted portions of your day. (Time just keeps going, and us college students seem to waste it frequently.) But I guess that is the beauty of it: To pick up an instrument and play it, even when that paper is due tomorrow.  So nice…

I thought of what Bono once prophetically sang, “All I have is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth.”

Well, I don’t know how much of what Bono says is true, but I do know that it is a powerful thing to see a man of God (who knows the truth) with a guitar, singing to the Lord.  But then again, I don’t want anybody to see me either.  I’m not singing for them.

Recently (over the past eight or nine months) I’ve gone back to the roots of my music appreciation.  I do love film scores immensely (Williams, Zimmer, Horner of today, and Steiner, Rosza and Herrmann of the past).  I love twentieth century music from artists like Shostakovich and even Barber.  I like to spend my moments listening to the canon of Mozart (yeah, he’s a genius).  His rhythmic consistentcy charms the brain waves and promotes deep thinking.  (Just study his consistent on-beat rhythms, they match the thinking patterns of the mindwives, it’s a well-proven study.)  This, of course, reminds me of how surely there is a Creator.  God is the best mathematician, best scientist, best music theorist.  He created them all.  It all points to order.  Irreducible reductionism. (Take that exhistentialist chaos theorists!)

“Chaos is dull.” -G.K. Chesterton

But why an appreciation for that genre of music remains, I’ve been suddenly enamoured with the music of the sixties and seventies: Clapton, Dylan, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Van Morrison, Eagles, Santana and so forth.  Yeah, I might dare say, they don’t play music like that anymore.  

Anyway, music is amazing.  It’s no wonder God commands us to sing and make music unto him.  He created it!

Psalm 150

“Praise the LORD, Praise God in his sanctuary;  praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!  Praise him with the trumpet sound; praise him with the lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance (INTERESTING!); praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!  Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!”

Think of it! A hall of believers totally entranced, enamoured, enchanted and enthused in complete communion with one another, praising the Lord with one accord and following the commandments of the Psalms.  Yes, if you want to know how to worship, spend time in the Psalms.

But also I know that this is not going to happen in this life time.  If you see something happening perfectly like what I just described then pinch yourself because you’re in glory!  But friends, I said it before and I’ll say it again, “Don’t let the biblical doctrine of Indwelling Sin serve as an excuse to continue in it.”

Sure, we’re not a glorified people yet, but that’s no excuse to disregard the clearly stated, clearly decreed commands of Scripture.  What blasphemy to think of it as an excuse!  You are either woefully misled or blinded by Satan to think that God’s people can continue in sin because they have not been glorified yet.

But, why would they?  If God’s spirit dwells in you, you can’t help but desire and strive to follow the commandment.  The Spirit will bear you witness if you don’t:

Ephesians 5:18-21

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

I color coded this scripture so that you could see how the Greek text works.  The Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, makes one distinct contrast.

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” Ephesians 5:18

Here is the contrast: Don’t be drunk with wine because that is a life controlled by the flesh.  Rather, (here’s the contrast) be filled with the Spirit, or more literally rendered, be controlled by the Spirit. That’s a life of a Christian.

The Holy Spirit dwells (or makes his residence) in Christians, and by the very nature of that truth, the Spirit (naturally) controls them.

(Notice the way Paul repeats this for the Colossian church in Colossians 3:16 in which he neatly ties the indwelling of the Holy Spirit together with the indwelling of the word of Christ.)

Christians no longer seek to be controlled by the flesh, “for that is debauchery.”  Sure, Paul cites the very clearly defined commandment against drunkenness (which is a sin), but Paul emphasizes this as truly a work of the flesh.  (See Galatians 5:19-21, specifically verse 21 which cites drunkenness as a work of the flesh.)

Now that we saw the contrast, let’s see the color coded contents of a person controlled by the Spirit.  God says that a person controlled by the Spirit will have at least these three contents in their life:

“…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

You see the three contents of a person controlled by the Spirit of God here.

1.)  Show me a person who sings to the Lord with their heart, I’ll show you a person controlled by the Spirit.

2.)  Show me a person who gives thanks always and for everything, and I’ll show you a person controlled by the Spirit.

3.)  Show me a person who submits to the proper biblical authority in their life (the contexts: wives to husbands, husbands loving wives, children to parents, fathers nurturing children, slaves to masters, masters to the Master as in Ephesians 5:22-6:9), and I’ll show you a person controlled by the Spirit.

But for our purposes, we note the first content:

“…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart…” Ephesians 5:19

A Spirit filled person wants to sing to the Father with thier hearts.  As the Spirit moves me, I just want to sing!

Robert Lowery, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley to name only few… (I’m strongly, strongly, strongly outspoken for the preservation of the hymns of the faith, especially when this text tells us to sing them.)

Chris Tomlin, some David Crowder, Third Day, Matt Redman to name a few writers of spiritual songs.

And yes, even the Psalms themselves.  I can’t understand why today’s church doesn’t sing them when this text says we should.  “We might sound Presbyterian,” they say.  Well, I don’t care about sounding Presbyterian, I want to be obedient to my Father.

And so, I end:  I just might pick up the guitar again.  Not for you in so much as I’m trying to please you.  I don’t seek to please you with my singing or playing.  But if my pleasing you in them serves to please my Father, I will.  This text does say, “…addressing one another.”  But notice it’s final words: ”….[sing] to the Father with your heart.”

And so, I will, with or without an instrument.

Working with you to create a melody pleasing to our Father,

Vince R.

All texts taken from the English Standard Version, 2005.