Reformed Christian Studies

 Posted at Log College Press: I sleep, but my heart waketh. — Song of Solomon 5:2 Commenting on this text of Scripture, George Burrowes takes occasion to expound upon the nature of the spiritual ups and downs of the Christian life more largely in descriptive terms to which experienced believers can well relate. This passage, to the end of ver. 8, illustrates the exercises of the soul in a time of spiritual sloth and decay. After thus unfolding to us his love, he lets us, as in this passage, see our depravity and indifference. Our religious life consists of a series of revivals and of withdrawals by Jesus, for calling into exercise and putting to the test our graces. When under the influence of first love, we determine never to forget the Saviour, and think the thing almost impossible. After some experience of the deceitfulness of the heart, when at some subsequent period we have had our souls restored and made to lie down in green pastures, beside the still waters, we resolve again to

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : If God is going to bring a great turning from sin, it must and can only be His work. Excerpt: “But it may not be improper to remark here, that for some time previous to this, everything around assumed a gloomy aspect in regard to evangelical piety. All meetings for prayer except the first Monday in the month, were relinquished. Gambling, horse-racing, intemperance, and dissipation of every kind, threatened all social order with destruction. A moral society had been established for two years, the object of which was the suppression of vice and immorality; but no human effort was able to withstand the torrent of vice which threatened us on every side. At the same time the exertions of Christians were paralyzed; the wise were sleeping with the foolish. This state of things alarmed a few praying people; they agreed to resume a prayer-meeting which had, for the first time in forty years, been relinquished the spring before. This t

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : August 10 - Rev. Daniel Baker Every Christian worker should have an experience like that of Daniel Baker. In the thirty-ninth year of his life and ministry, the twelfth year of his pastoral ministry, he felt a dryness in his soul, which was evidenced by a lack of fruitfulness in his ministry. So he went not to the philosophers of his day, nor to the Christian counselors, nor to any self-help guru, but rather to God Himself. Going into the woods on August 10, 1830 near his house in Savannah, Georgia, he came to a cemetery. Entering it, finding a tree near a brick tomb, he began to cry to God for revival. Returning to his congregation, he held a congregational prayer meeting in which he requested the members of that church to write notes for whom prayer might be especially desirable. ... Read more...

By Rev. Armen Thomassian - Posted at Sermon Audio: Scripture Text: Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. ~ Hosea 10:12 (KJV) Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=62916321450

Posted at Purely Presbyterian : The Great Awakening either strikes fear in the hearts of many American Presbyterians or is one of the fondest memories of Presbyterianism in the United States (though it wasn’t the USA yet). Those who contend the Great Awakening was the beginning of a series of many problems for Presbyterianism or the Reformed Faith in North America typically point out how men like the Tennents preached without a license, how they at times stole people’s assurance and how they pried people away from “Mother Kirk” foaming at the mouth with false revivalistic fervour. The other side views the Great Awakening as the defining moment, the greatest moment, where God’s Spirit was poured out on the Church in the New World and Gospel was preached with power, fervency, and clarity! I fall into the latter camp, and though I will admit not everything was perfect in the Great Awakening, good or bad, it was American Presbyterianism’s seminal moment. Though the Great Awakening i

By Mike Ratliff - Posted at Possessing the Treasure : 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:6-8 (NASB) I grew up as a Southern Baptist. Much of the memories from my childhood have something to do with being at church each and every Sunday morning and evening. One thing I remember was an annual event in our church called a ‘Revival.’ The Pastor and his staff would plan it for a certain range of dates, put those dates in every church bulletin leading up to it, put signs up in front of the church advertising it, and make announcement after announcement from the pulpit to remember the upcoming ‘Revival.’ The speaker for these revival meetings was usually some evangelist I had never seen before or

By Dr. Alan Cairns - Posted at Sermon Audio: Scripture: Isaiah 51:9 (KJV) "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" Link: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=101500225919