Articles

September 12, 2001 Someone asked me after our Tuesday prayer service in response to the terrorist attack, ‘Can we pray for justice, and yet love our enemy at the same time?’ The answer is yes. But let’s start with or own guilt. Christians know that if God dealt with us only according to justice, we […]

Stephen Charnock, B.D., was born in the year 1628, in the parish of St. Katharine Cree, London. His father, Mr. Richard Charnock, practiced as a solicitor in the Court of Chancery, and was descended from a family of some antiquity in Lancashire. Stephen, after a course of preparatory study, entered himself, at an early period […]

O Lord, revive thy work. — Habakkuk 3:2 All true religion is the work of God: it is pre-eminently so. If he should select out of his works that which he esteems most of all, he would select true religion. He regards the work of grace as being even more glorious than the works of […]

Following as it did so closely upon the Reformation it is not surprising that the Puritan movement in England believed so firmly in revivals of religion as the great means by which the Church advances in the world. For the Reformation was itself the greatest revival since Pentecost a spring-time of new life for the […]

A personal testimony. For over twenty years Neil Richards has had a most blessed ministry in Wheelock Heath Baptist Church in Cheshire. He has finally retired from the pastorate, and this is the letter he wrote to his beloved congregation at the end of July 2001. * * * In the Evangelical Magazine of Wales, […]

In a recent edition of the Spectator (28 July 2001) Anne Applebaum describes a visit to Vortuka, north of the Arctic Circle where roses do not grow. There are no daisies or lilies; no sunflowers or geraniums, just a few wild flowers which spring up in the very short, very hot northern summer. The grow […]

Should women serve in military combat? Does the church have Scriptural warrant to claim that women should not? The Orthodox Presbyterian Church officially thinks so, but delegates to the OPC’s 68th General Assembly in Grand Rapids in June were hardly unanimous in their decision. Instead, a study committee commissioned to examine the issue split evenly […]

It is very odd how difficult it seems for some persons to understand just what Calvinism is. And yet the matter itself presents no difficulty whatever. It is capable of being put into a single sentence; and that, one level to every religious man’s comprehension. For Calvinism is just religion in its purity. We have […]

Towards the end of his life the great 18th-century Baptist preacher John Gill became rather weak and unwell. It was suggested to him by his deacons that he might benefit from the help of an assistant pastor. He did not take kindly to the suggestion. ‘I’ve read plenty in the Bible’, he is reported to […]

ONE While the true greatness of a preacher will only be revealed at Christ’s tribunal, I would join my opinion with those of many others who make the earthly judgment that Charles Spurgeon was the most effective and useful of preachers since the days of the Apostles. Yes, as highly as I regard Augustine, Luther, […]

Thomas Bilney, ‘whose conversion had begun the Reformation in England’ was, in God’s hands, the instrument of Hugh Latimer’s conversion. The story of his life ‘in strength and weakness’, leading to his martyrdom in 1531, is eloquently recorded in The Reformation of England, volumes 1 and 2 by J. H. Merle d’Aubigné (Banner of Truth). […]

The sovereignty of God I take to be the absolute authority, rule, and government of God in the whole of that reality that exists distinct from himself in the realms of nature and of grace. It is a concept that respects his relation to other beings and to all other being and existence. It is, […]

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.’ — Romans 10:3 ‘For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going’. . . We have, so far, been dealing with the first two verses, and have seen that certain general […]

‘Wise men store up knowledge…’ — Proverbs 10:14a One of the immense edifices on the skyline of Christian history over the last hundred years was the eminent leader, Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones (1899-1981). He is noteworthy not only because he was a great preacher and the pastor of Westminster Chapel of London, but also because […]

One of the most staggering verses in the Bible is surely Romans 8:28, ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who are the called according to his purpose.’ What is so breath-taking is the scope of Paul’s conviction, ‘in all things,’ and the unbounded assurance […]