Yearly Archives: 2010

Do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5) . . . speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) . . . through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13). The year 1735 was a remarkable one in the western world.1 In January, while her husband Jonathan was off preaching in other places, the Spirit of […]

Many years ago I was taking a class with Dr. R.C. Sproul. He said that most people find their identity either in ‘being’ or ‘doing.’ He pointed to his wife Vesta, who was sitting in the class, and said, ‘If you ask her what she does, she’ll answer, “I don’t do anything, I be.”‘ My […]

It is generally agreed that the two most prominent leaders of the 18th century revival in Wales were Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland.1 They had much in common. They were about the same age; the Lord called them both from darkness to light in the same year (1735); they had a common friend in the […]

The Evangelical Library held their first lunch-time meeting in the new building at the end of March 2010. Professor Paul Helm gave a fascinating introduction to a forgotten little work by John Owen called A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity.1 It actually goes on to deal with Christ’s person and […]

The Let’s Study series aims to explain the Bible in a clear and understandable way and then apply it to our lives today. Let’s Study Matthew by Mark Ross admirably fulfils these objectives. Writing from a reformed evangelical perspective, Mark Ross accepts Matthew’s teaching on such doctrines as the virgin birth, Jesus’ divine and human nature, and the reality […]

Calvin’s fame as the prince of theologians rests firmly on his ability and wisdom as an interpreter of God’s Word. In his commentaries on the Holy Scriptures we see that God-given skill put to a practical use. Indeed Calvin’s commentaries are still indispensable to serious students of the Bible almost 500 years after their original […]

Sin entered into the world through one man (Romans 5:12). I delight in the doctrine of justification by faith – the marvellous truth that God declares the unrighteous sinner (bound for hell due to his guilt) as righteous, putting him into the category of being righteous through the person and work of Christ. Even the […]

When the Lord Jesus was in this world, he went about doing good. In particular, he healed large numbers of people who were suffering from every kind of illness and disability. Even when ‘great multitudes followed him’, ‘he healed them all‘ (Matt. 12:15). Reports of these miracles spread everywhere and, as Jairus watched his 12-year-old […]

These two attractively-bound volumes of Scottish Presbyterian biographies from the seventeenth century1 were originally published by the Wodrow Society in 1845. William Tweedie, the editor, who collected the biographies chiefly from the Library of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, was a minister of the Disruption Free Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. The original Wodrow […]

We must confess that we are fascinated with this book. Eighty-three letters by John Newton – and all but ten of them have lain in obscurity in the two hundred years since they were written! What a mercy that they have been found! John Newton was twenty-five years older than John Ryland, but took a […]

I appreciate the invitation to be here this evening as one of the two speakers on this important and vital issue regarding the Creation/Evolution debate, a subject which is not only a vital one for the Church in the 21st Century but is coming increasingly to the fore even in scientific circles as more and […]

Too much has been made of the fact that Jesus is never said to have smiled or laughed. That fact has been linked to his description as ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ The picture is developed making Jesus’ life joyless and stressful. That is a gross over-simplification. For one thing, a joyless […]

J. I.Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of his Life and Thought Ed. Timothy George Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009 256 pp, paperback ISBN: 978 0 80103 387 2 This book will be of general interest, both because Dr Packer rightly has many admirers around the world, and because anything that addresses the future […]

The day before John Owen departed to be with Christ (23 August 1683), he dictated his last letter to a friend: ‘I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, – which is the whole ground of my consolation.’ The following day, William Payne […]

EXTRACTS FROM CHAPTERS 8 & 9 OF IAIN H. MURRAY’S Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace1 The position of the mixed denominations in the 1960s was far from static. On account of the ecumenical movement, the whole future of denominations was under discussion as it had never been before. When ML-J raised the great Reformation question, ‘What […]

Many ministers of my vintage (coming up on 38 years since ordination) have a few texts to which they have returned time and again. In my case, two of those are Acts 2:42 and 1 Thessalonians 5:14. In late summer of 1969, just after Susan and I were married and just before we went off […]

The Let’s Study is a series of paperbacks written to help ordinary Christians to read, understand, and apply God’s Word to their lives. Ian Hamilton has written an excellent addition to the collection, on the three letters of John. Although only 130 pages long there is a wealth of good, sound teaching in its pages. The apostle […]

‘provides great encouragement . . . reminds us to perseveringly pray and constantly remember that we have a Savior Who loved us before we ever loved Him and Who always provides what is good for us even in the midst of testing . . . particularly enjoyable to those who enjoy the fruit of Puritan […]

These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer (Acts 1:14). David Brainerd was born in April, 1718 in Haddam, Connecticut and was converted just prior to enrolling at Yale in September, 1739. He was deeply and profoundly affected by the preaching of George Whitefield at Yale in the fall of 1741 at […]

But I have this against you, that you have left your first love (Revelation 2:4). By 1630 Scotland was in need of another revival, a time of visitation by God when a whole community is soaked with his presence. Such had occurred five years earlier in the town of Stewarton under the ministry of David […]

Sin is everywhere around us in a fallen world. We come in contact with it constantly; the media bring some particularly-awful examples of it to our attention again and again. And no matter where we look, in any part of the earth, we will find sin and its terrible consequences staring us in the face. […]

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord (Genesis 8:20). The year 1995 was a difficult one for me. I was working far too many hours and the idolatry of my work and my children’s activities had caused me to drift in my devotion to my wife. We were not in danger of divorce (we […]

The gentleness and patience of God continue to amaze me and fill me with a sense of increasingly profound gratitude. At the same time, I grow weary of my own lack of those tender virtues that are so fitting and essential in relationships with other sinners. It is striking and instructive for us to note […]

THE URGENT NEED FOR REVIVAL TODAY ‘Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit. And wherever he seizes him, he throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples, that they should cast […]

So Paul told the Corinthians (1 Cor. 7:29). And that brief statement had huge implications for the way that believers in Corinth were to live. It would seem that much of the advice the Apostle gave them in this chapter – for instance, not to marry – was relevant to what he calls ‘the present […]