Reformed Christian Studies

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube: Direct Link:  41. Livingstone - YouTube

By Pastor Brian Schwertley - Posted at Sermon Audio : Direct Link:  Standing Against the Devil, Part 4 | SermonAudio Scripture Text:  Ephesians 6:13 -18 KJV - Bible Gateway Source:  https://www.scripture-images.com/  

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms: How You Say God's Name Shows What You Think of Him Good Morning! It’s always an interesting start to the day when I get to talk about vain janglings. Of the many unique things we come across in the Larger Catechism some of my favorites are the older words and ways used to describe particular violations of the law of God. They provide an opportunity for us to consider first of all, what they might be, and also remind of us of how seriously our forefathers in the faith took everything that they did. Kind of like the long list of names at the opening of 1 Chronicles can move us to boredom, it can be the case that when our WLC gets into the minute examples of the ways we can break the commandment we have a tendency to allow the particularity of it to make us think these guys were at best overly scrupulous and at worst that dreaded of all insults, Pharisees. Yet, their care and love and desire for all of us to be holy as

 By William Boekestein - Posted at Place for Truth: It’s a common objection to the doctrine of particular redeeming grace: What about free will? With a free will can’t we desire God, and decide to follow him on our own initiative? But that argument begs the question; what needs to be proven is merely assumed. We need to know what Scripture teaches about the human will. Our will is what we desire or determine to do, our inclinations. If in some way our wills are impaired—or as Luther put it, if our wills are in bondage—we are dependent on God “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” ( Phil. 2:13 ). Following Saint Augustine we can speak of human nature in its four-fold state. Nuancing humanity’s condition as created, fallen, redeemed, and glorified will help us more accurately understand free will and its implications . Man’s Will in a State of Innocence (9.1–2) God created our wills upright and free ( Eccl. 7:29 ). Before sin entered the world the human will was neither “forced

But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days — Daniel 12:13 We cannot understand all the prophecies, but yet we regard them with pleasure and not with dismay. There can be nothing in the Father's decree which should justly alarm His child. Though the abomination of desolation be set up, yet the true believer shall not be defiled; rather shall he be purified, and made white, and tried. Though the earth be burned up, no smell of fire shall come upon the chosen. Amid the crash of matter and the wreck of worlds, the LORD Jehovah will preserve His own. Calmly resolute in duty, brave in conflict, patient in suffering, let us go our way, keeping to our road, and neither swerving from it nor loitering in it. The end will come; let us go our way till it does. Rest will be ours. All other things swing to and fro, but our foundation standeth sure. God rests in His love, and, therefore, we rest in it. Our peace is, and ever shall be, lik

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube: Direct Link:  40. Carey - YouTube

 By Pastor Brian Schwertley - Posted at Sermon Audio: Direct Link:  Standing Against the Devil, Part 3 | SermonAudio Scripture Text:  Ephesians 6:13-18 KJV - Bible Gateway Source:  https://www.scripture-images.com/ 

By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms : Believe on the the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou Shalt Be Saved Good Morning, Next on the list is the commandment which deals with the name of God. Now, for sure this statute means we ought not use the acronym OMG nor say the full thing out loud nor use the name Jesus in a light way, but as we saw with the two previous laws there is a holistic way that we are to follow the Lord’s teaching that touches all areas of our being, both body and soul. One of the ways we become little pharisees with the law is to act as if only the outward keeping of it is what really matters, yet just like with the prohibition against imaging pictures of Jesus in our head what we see required below to the just obedience of the third commandment includes how we think about God, His titles, attributes, ordinances, etc... This is a vitally central part of the way we are to honor the name of our Lord. So, as we get into this command let us take a lo

 By William Boekestein - Posted at Place for Truth: One complaint against theology is that it complicates simple matters. Do we really need doctrine if we believe the Bible and trust Jesus? Might we not lose our first love while stockpiling spiritual information? We might. And so we must resist replacing faith with mere knowledge. But the objection that theology complicates faith is also naïve. In no other worthy endeavor does it make sense to reject deep and intimate knowledge in favor of a primitive attachment to an idea. Love should be fed by knowledge. Faith in Jesus must be child-like ( Matt. 18:1–4 ) but not childish. We should press on, leaving behind “the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity” ( Heb. 6:1 ). Faith can be as simple as “Jesus loves me.” But it should want to know more of how Christ the mediator loves sinners, even when that knowledge is intricate. The work of a mediator implies estrangement and disagreement. In our natural alienation with God ( Rom.

"I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her" — Hosea 2:14 The goodness of God sees us allured by sin, and it resolves to try upon us the more powerful allurements of love. Do we not remember when the Lover of our souls first cast a spell upon us and charmed us away from the fascinations of the world! He will do this again and again whenever He sees us likely to be ensnared by evil. He promises to draw us apart, for there He can best deal with us, and this separated place is not to be a paradise, but a wilderness, since in such a place there will be nothing to take of our attention from our God. In the deserts of affliction the presence of the LORD becomes everything to us, and we prize His company beyond any value which we set upon it when we sat under our own vine and fig tree in the society of our fellows. Solitude and affliction bring more to themselves and to their heavenly Father than any other means. When thus allured and seclud

By Bruce Gore - Posted at YouTube: Direct Link:  John Newton and David Brainerd - YouTube

By Pastor Brian Schwertley - Posted at Sermon Audio: Direct Link:  Standing Against the Devil, Part 2 | SermonAudio Scripture Text:  Ephesians 6:11-18 KJV - Put on the whole armour of God - Bible Gateway Source:  Ephesians 6:11 KJV (scripture-images.com)

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms: The Logic and Purpose of the Second Commandment Good Morning, This week as we spend time on the negative thou shalt nots of the Second Commandment we will gain a better perspective on how this portion of God’s word applies to us today, not only as the church, but as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. However, before we get into specific applications we need to deal with the question as to why it (and the Fourth Commandment) receives the most pushback from those within the camp. An unfortunate reality of the world in which we live is that we have been taught that anything that tells you no is necessarily restraining your libertarian freedom. The ethos of the day bites against the bridle. It wants to be free to order life in accordance with what we think makes us happy, and what we think works. Utilitarian libertinism is the philosophy of America. While it has had its blessings in providing the courage to settle the West

 By Ryan Biese - Posted at Mid the Pines: Terry Johnson annually asks good questions regarding the worship services accompanying PCA Generally Assemblies. Why does GA worship typically not reflect the historic principles of Reformed worship? I am relatively new to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). I was reared in the mainline (theologically liberal) Lutheran Church (ELCA) with its normative principle of worship. Worship in the ELCA of the 1990s and 2000s was characterized by robes, processions, well-developed liturgy, the liturgical calendar, candles, kneeling for Holy Communion, strong congregational singing, and, alas, short homilies and sometimes kitschy attempts to make worship “relevant.” While at Grove City College , I was exposed to Reformed Worship at a local congregation , which was decidedly different from my previous experience. Worship was dialogical and characterized by speaking Scripture and singing Scripture either from the psalter or from hymns that reflected th

"And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believeth thou this?" — John 11:26 Yes, LORD, we believe it; we shall never die. Our soul may be separated from our body, and this is death of a kind; but our soul shall never be separated from God, which is the true death -- the death which was threatened to sin -- the death penalty which is the worst that can happen. We believe this most assuredly, for who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our LORD? We are members of the Body of Christ; will Christ lose parts of His Body? We are married to Jesus; will He be bereaved and widowed? It is not possible. There is a life within us which is not capable of being divided from God: yea, and the Holy Spirit dwells within us, and how then can we die? Jesus, Himself, is our life, and therefore there is no dying for us, for He cannot die again. In Him we died unto sin once, and the capital sentence cannot a second time be executed. Now we live, and li

By Bruce Gore - Posted at Sermon Audio: Direct Link:  (23) 37. George Whitefield - YouTube

By Pastor Brian Schwertley - Posted at Sermon Audio: Direct Link:  Standing Against the Devil, Part 1 | SermonAudio Scripture Text:  Ephesians 6:10-18 KJV - Finally, my brethren, be strong in the - Bible Gateway Source:  https://www.scripture-images.com/

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms: Why We Must Let Go and Let God in the Day of His Praise Good Morning, The next two weeks will be taken up with the consideration of the Second Commandment. There is certainly more going on in this statute than the question surrounding images: printed, injection-molded, thought of, etc... however they are made. Granted that these are the positive statements about the matter we will not take up so much how we break the law here given, but the blessings we see in our obedience to it. With no further ado here are our Q/A’s for this week: Q. 107. Which is the second commandment? A. The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the ch

 By Pastor Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian Church: Georg William Frederick Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher whose dialectical method has become the dominant thought pattern for most people in the world today—including so-called evangelical pastors and theologians in the United States. His methodology is non-evangelical to the core and it is a dangerous inconsistency for any Christian to hold to it. It amounts to the denial of absolute truth. Most Christians and most pastors/theologians would deny Hegel’s dialectical method. Sadly, they still think according to Hegelian dialecticism nonetheless. So, what is Hegel’s dialectical method? The old methodology was to think in terms of truth and error; right and wrong; pros and cons. Hegel changed that way of thinking by offering a third way—the synthesis of the thesis and antithesis. Hegel’s synthesis becomes a higher truth and a new truth which replaces the old stalemate of thesis and antithesis. For many years, th

 By William Boekestein - Posted at Place for Truth : Every relationship needs definition. Without clear terms we are unsure how to interact with each other. Marriage is a good example of how definitions aid relationships. Upon marriage an otherwise unrelated man and a woman become united by covenant. In the presence of witnesses each partner promises to fulfil responsibilities. Signed records formalize the covenant. So it is with God’s relationship to people. Imagine if God had created humans but never introduced himself or articulated what he expected of them or what they could expect of him. Our debt of obedience and the penalty for non-compliance would still have existed but we wouldn’t have known it. And how could we enjoy God ignorant of how the sovereign Creator would treat us from one moment to the next? From the beginning God has defined his relationship with his people through covenants . The Covenant of Works (5.1, 2) Scripture doesn’t explicitly identify a pre-fall covenant

By Bruce Gore - Posted at Sermon Audio: Direct Link:  (17) 36. Jonathan Edwards - YouTube