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Topic Archives: Christian Living

‘The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9). We are considering the perfections of God. When the Puritan Stephen Charnock considers the attributes of God he lines up this beautiful string […]

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Category Articles
Date October 27, 2014
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I first read this gentle little quiz in the Friendly Companion, the children’s magazine of the Gospel Standard Baptists. I rearranged it a little and then spoke to the children in our congregation and asked them if they could work out the answer. What is this? 1. It is one word with seven letters. 2. […]

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Category Articles
Date October 22, 2014
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Paul’s Letter to the Romans is a pastoral tour de force. It is of course richly theological. Nowhere does Paul more deeply and beautifully open up to us the gospel of God’s saving grace in Christ. But Paul’s theology of grace is not an abstract exposition of doctrine. He is concerned to explain to the […]

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Date October 1, 2014
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Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel (Zechariah 3:3). An estimated one in four women, and one in six men were sexually assaulted before the age of eighteen.1 Perhaps you were sexually molested as a child. If so, then the chances are pretty good that you battle with a […]

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Date September 24, 2014
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A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way (Isaiah 35:8). Jehovah spoke the word through Jeremiah the prophet (Jer. 7:12), giving Judah a history lesson, that they might remember what […]

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Date September 12, 2014
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An extract from Al Martin’s What’s Wrong with Preaching Today?, published as a booklet by the Trust.1 Originally an address given to the Ministers’ Conference of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church at Westminster Theological Seminary in September 1967, the transcript was revised for publication by the author, who sought to retain the sermonic style. Preaching has […]

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Date September 11, 2014
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This is a glorious book on a glorious subject. The prince of preachers Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) outlines seven great achievements that Jesus Christ won for us. Christ, he explains, is the end of the law, the conqueror of Satan, the overcomer of the world, the maker of all things new, the spoiler of principalities and […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date September 8, 2014
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An extract from the sermon ‘Saints should not be discouraged whatever their condition be’ in William Bridge’s A Lifting Up for the Downcast,1 published by the Trust in the Puritan Paperbacks series. If my very resting on God doth make Him mine, I may have comfort in Him too. Now the saints and people of […]

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Date August 13, 2014
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An interview with Tim Challies by Joel Beeke 1. What is casuistry and why did the Puritans focus on it? Casuistry is teaching people how to know what God wants them to do in specific situations, and how to live with peace of conscience before God. It addresses particular ‘cases of conscience’ or ethical and […]

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Category Articles
Date August 11, 2014
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An extract from chapter 4 – ‘Our Hope’ – in J. C. Ryle’s Old Paths.1 I entreat all who feel they have no hope, and desire to have it, to seek ‘a good hope’ while it can be found. A good hope is within the reach of any man, if he is only willing to […]

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Category Articles
Date August 8, 2014
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One of the abilities that we have as human beings (and it’s one that distinguishes us from all the other creatures), is our ability to ponder the future – to wonder, to imagine, to look forward to, to fear what lies before us. And we all do it! Our minds are often turning to the […]

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Date August 7, 2014
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The Christian life is a life of faith. More accurately, the Christian life is a life of faith in God. It is the object of faith that gives faith its lustre, and nothing more enriches, ennobles, and establishes faith than the God who made the heavens and the earth, who reigns in unrivalled splendour over […]

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Category Articles
Date July 28, 2014
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When your child learns to write, he is ready to begin taking sermon notes. Say, what? Let’s say that little George is 4 or 5 or 6 years old and he knows how to write his name and how to write all of his letters. Now he can get started! All you need is a […]

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Date July 25, 2014
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‘And he went outside and wept bitterly’. It is Matthew’s final word about Peter. He has faithfully recorded the details of Peter’s sin – the warning that preceded it, the pride in which it originated, the sin itself in all its aggravating features – and now he speaks of the effect on Peter when the […]

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Date July 21, 2014
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And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32). At Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit came, Peter preached with great convicting and converting power, resulting in three thousand people calling on the name of the Lord to be saved […]

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Date July 11, 2014
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The disciples once asked Jesus that very question. A storm was raging, their boat was in danger of sinking, and Jesus, of all things, was asleep! Shouldn’t he have been awake and helping them? Didn’t he care if they drowned? These men are not the only disciples to have questioned Jesus’ care. Many others have […]

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Date June 30, 2014
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The Banner had the opportunity to sit down with Mark Johnston and ask him to tell us a little bit about his past. A Banner author of three titles , Let’s Study Colossians and Philemon, Let’s Study 2 Peter and Jude, and Let’s Study John , Mark shared with us his upbringing as a child […]

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Date June 27, 2014
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Psalm 119 is a large collection of very short prayers, most of which we only pray as we read the Psalm itself. Some of them, however, have so woven themselves into our memories and experiences that we frequently find ourselves praying them at other times. A fine example is the prayer of verse 18: ‘Open […]

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Date June 18, 2014
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‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (John 17:3). These words are from the greatest prayer ever prayed, and they tells us the answer to the quest all mankind has been engaged in since the fall of Adam: What is eternal […]

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Date June 9, 2014
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Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher/theologian, described life as paddling in an ocean ten thousand fathoms deep. How right he was. This thought is no less and even more appropriate to the study of theology, the coherent teaching about himself that God has revealed to us in the Bible. Some of us know the […]

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Date June 4, 2014
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‘There is no danger,’ writes Albert Barnes, ‘that more constantly besets Christians, and even eminent Christians, than pride. There is no sin that is more subtle, insinuating, deceptive; none that lurks more constantly around the heart and that finds a more ready entrance than pride.’ In a remarkable section in one of his letters, one […]

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Date June 2, 2014
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This is a wonderful little book that deals with that daily battle against Satan, the enemy of our souls. John Brown was a faithful preacher of God’s word who ministered in Scotland the first part of the 19th century. Whilst in Edinburgh he expounded all of 1 Peter. This took 16 years. This book is […]

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Date May 27, 2014
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In this small book the author makes the argument for teaching children the catechism regularly from a young age, quoting many well-known theologians as he goes along. The author discusses the history and strengths of the catechism (specifically the Westminster Shorter Catechism), but it is when he writes about its structure and the way it […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date May 26, 2014
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For many years we have been deeply concerned that there are so many people in our congregations who clearly possess the fear of the Lord, and yet who have never found any real assurance of their interest in Christ, and so have never openly professed the Saviour’s name. The sad thing is that so many […]

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Date May 14, 2014
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Here are some choice selections from Banner’s newest book in the Pocket Puritans series: None But Jesus.1 These quotes from John Flavel will give the reader a good taste of the riches found within this small volume. Buy one for yourself, for your friends and for your family members and drink deeply from Flavel’s edifying […]

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Category Articles
Date May 13, 2014
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