February Pastoral Letter

Greetings in the Name of the Lord!

We are now about a little past halfway in our study through the Book of Amos. If the Lord tarries we should finish Amos by the end of April. It has been quite a blessing to work through the words of the Prophet and I have learned much concerning God’s Love and Justice towards His people Israel. My hope is you also have been blessed by this study.

One of the main themes running through the book is that Israel had fallen past a state of pure revolution into a mode of thinking that better mirrored apathy more than just simple rebellion against God (Amos 5:13). There is a sense in which apathy can be worse than disobedience as apathy allows disobedience to prosper (Prov 18:9). Part of this was shown in how the Israelites approached worship. The Israelites were still going through the motions of honoring the outward parts of the worship of God, showing up for worship at Gilgal, Bethel, and Beersheba (places which of course God had not called them to worship, 1 Kings 12:25-33, Amos 5:21-22), yet they did not do so out of a sense of love toward God, but because there had set in a type of societal obligation in fulfilling the formal elements of Sabbath worship. Israel worshipped God because that is what they had always done and it was part of what they believed made them Israel. This mindset is of course not something the church left behind in ancient Israel (Matt 15:8-9, Rev. 3:14-16). There are many people today that attend church services for much the same reason. Whether it is to make mom happy or to be “seen” their motivation behind going to church on the Lord’s Day is not that much different from what Amos is speaking against in his prophecy. It is important as we move forward as a church in a national climate that is becoming more and more hostile to the truths of the Gospel and the teachings of Holy Scripture we take stock of ourselves (2 Peter 1:5-10) and guard our hearts (Prov. 4:23-27) so we may better understand why it is we come to worship (John 4:23, Heb. 10:19-25, 13:7-17) the Triune God, who is our Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit on the Day He has set aside for His worship (Ex. 20:8, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor 16:2, Rev. 1:10).

May God continue to Bless you as you continue to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in His Grace and Mercy and Peace.

In God’s Love,

 

Gary North and Confessional Presbyterianism

Head on over to Seth Stark’s blog here to read some timely quotes from Gary North’s work “Crossed Fingers”. You can download North’s book here for free (as well as other works by him).

 

Another Problem With Ecclesiology

In prior posts I noted the type of defective understanding of Presbyterianism that inhabits the “renewal” movements in the PC(USA). Today I was notified of this video conversation concerning “Multi-site” churches led by Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald and critique thereof by Mark Dever. (You can view the video here).  While all three are Baptist and therefore Congregationalist and therefore all defective in this Presbyterian’s understanding of what the Bible teaches concerning Ecclesiology, Mark Dever does a very good job of pointing out the “man-centered” nature of multi-site churches. No matter what Mark Driscoll thinks his organization will fall-apart after he dies/retires because it has the wrong focus in its understanding of the church and how it should be governed.

The Westminster Divines and Genesis 1

There are few subjects that bring more heat than the current debate in Christian circles concerning the meaning and historicity of Genesis 1-11 and especially the 6 days of Creation. Even in the Reformed world in which we inhabit there is little coherence on this issue. One of the ways each side tries to buttress arguments is by pointing to historical examples of people who either held their position or at best  did not agree with the position they are arguing against. For those of us in the Westminster tradition it is especially important to understand what the Divines themselves understood by “in the space of 6 days” and what it meant to the authors of the Confession in chapter 4 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

This discussion flared up again recently when the Rev. Danny Hyde notified the blogosphere that this dated article by Robert Letham that attempts to show what the church believed “in the space of 6 days” to mean from Origen to the Westminster Assembly. There is only one problem. David Hall in a an audio message you can listen to here (that predates Letham’s article) shows definitively (also in a book you can buy here) that the claims made by Letham in his article concerning the Assembly’s views on the 6 days are at best misleading.

The Virgin of Israel Has Fallen

Sermon preached 2/13/2011 at Ellisville Presbyterian Church.

Download here.

Amos 5

A Lament for Israel

¹ Hear this word which I take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:
² The virgin of Israel has fallen;
She will rise no more.
She lies forsaken on her land;
There is no one to raise her up.

³ For thus says the Lord GOD:

“ The city that goes out by a thousand
Shall have a hundred left,
And that which goes out by a hundred
Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

 

There is Some Old School in the Family Tree

I have always known my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather was a Presbyterian Minister but no one knew much about him. Well I had found a bit through the library at PTS but not too much more. I was searching on Google for something else (as is usually the case) and I came upon a Book called “West Virginia and Its People” which lists the more prominent families in the State’s history. Well I ran into his name, Rev. David R. Preston (he is listed under the care of Charles Hodge at Princeton Seminary in the photo), there and it listed a number of things I did not know previously.

1) He was a student and graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary from 1825-1828. (Studying under Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, and a young Charles Hodge for one year).

2) He served as a “home missionary” at the Naval Base in Pensacola, Florida right out of seminary.

3) Then from 1831-1835 was a “church planter” and was founding Pastor of what became the First Presbyterian Church, St. Joseph, Missouri.

4) After this he pastored the Sinking Spring Presbyterian Church in Abingdon, VA from 1835-1841. The cool thing about this pastorate was he was an “old-school” Presbyterian and kicked out the “New-school” part of the congregation.

5) He evidently had health problems and moved back to the family farm in what is now West Virginia and served as a Stated Supply at the Presbyterian church in Union, WV until his death in 1850.

The Current Debate Over 2K and Natural Law

As with most debates we have within the Church there is a good chance this issue has come up before. While looking for something else I came across this article by Greg Bahnsen from 1988 that is critiquing Norman Geisler concerning Dr. Geisler’s critiques of Theonomy.  It should be noted at this time that not all critiques of the Escondido-led views on 2K come from theonomic circles (in fact most of them do not, Nelson Kloosterman who himself has come out against the reformulation of 2K had his run-ins in the past with Dr. Bahnsen).  However in this short excerpt one of the core issues, Natural Law, what it says and what content it delivers, is examined by Dr. Bahnsen.

Is Natural Revelation Morally Abbreviated?

The only defense left to Dr. Geisler at this point is to resort to the baseless idea that a wedge can be driven between the just requirements revealed in the Bible and those revealed in natural revelation — that is, to hold that civil government should not be guided by the morality of the Bible, but instead by “God-given moral rules called Nature’s laws.” Distinguishing between the moral content of special revelation and the moral content of natural revelation (as though the latter is merely a parallel subsection of the former), Geisler maintains that “God ordained Divine Law for the church, but He gave Natural Law for civil government.”

Nothing like this dichotomy (and truncating of natural revelation’s moral content) can be found in the teaching of the Apostle Paul, however. The Apostle teaches that even pagans who do not have the advantage of the specially revealed law (“oracle”) of God (Romans 3:102) nevertheless know the just requirements of that law since they are inescapably revealed through the created order and human conscience (1:18-23; 2:14-15). They know the holiness and justice of the living and true God well enough that they are guilty for not worshiping Him aright in any area of their lives; thus God’s wrath is revealed from heaven “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (1:18) — against all transgressions of His righteous law (cf. 7:7, 12).

Paul says nothing to suggest that there is a difference in the moral content of these two revelations, written and natural. The written law is an advantage over natural revelation because the latter is suppressed and distorted in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-25). But what pagans suppress is precisely the “work of the Law” (2:14-15). Natural revelation communicates to them, as Paul says, “the ordinance of God” about “all unrighteousness” (1:29,32). Because they “know” God’s ordinance, they are “without excuse” for refusing to live in terms of it (1:20). What the law speaks, then, it speaks “in order that all the world may be brought under the judgment of God” (3:19). The is ONE law order to which all men are bound, whether they learn of it by means of natural revelation or by means of special revelation. God is no respecter of persons here (2:11). “All have sinned” (3:23) — thus violated that common standard for the “knowledge of sin” in all men, the law of God. (3:20).

The Primary Error

With Geisler’s theologically faulty view of natural revelation (or natural law) in mind, we can understand how his article commits its primary conceptual error: the attempt to enunciate a moral standard for civil government (contrary to secular humanism) but one which is Not religious (contrary to reconstructionism). He asks what kind of laws should be enacted by the State, “Christian laws or Humanistic laws?” He immediately answers: “Neither. Rather, they should simply be just laws. Laws should not be either Christian or anti-Christian; they should merely be fair ones.”

What is naively presupposed by that statement, though, is that we can establish a common conception and standard of “justice” (or “fairness”) apart from reference to a religions commitment — without gaining that moral standard from the philosophical worldview within which we work, whether it be atheistic, deistic, pantheistic, cult, Christian, or whatever. But this is nothing but an illusion — the illusion of religious neutrality in making moral decisions. Humanists and Christians do not agree as to what constitutes “justice”; neither do Hindus and naturalists, etc. These fundamental disagreements do not arise because advocates of one worldview or the other have made intellectual errors (of fact or logic) which are readily correctable. They disagree precisely because of the irreconcilable conflict in their fundamental religious (or philosophical) commitments.

Geisler is simply playing a game with words when he advocates a “just government” instead of a “religious government.” There is no religiously neutral concept of justice that could make sense out of this distinction. When men claim to be relying on natural reason (or even “natural law” gained from the world), they endorse grievous moral conclusions — such as Dr. Geisler’s early condoning of abortion under some circumstances! (Ethics: Alternatives and Issues, Zondervan, 1971, pp. 220-223). But even more important and relevant to Geisler’s hypothesis about political ethics, those who claim to be following natural reason or natural law still do not end up concurring with each other over the most elementary political issues — as the history of both philosophical opinion and political theorizing illustrates.

 

The Laws of Moses With Penal Sanctions

One of the criticisms often lobbed against Christians by unbelievers is that the Laws of Moses are barbaric and are so outside the pale that to even think there are some good things within the Law is absurd. With that in mind I would like to take some time to explore what exactly the Law of Moses says on several issues facing us today.

Our first look will be concerning the laws that call for a penal sanction for the breaking thereof. The Penal Laws usually receive the harshest treatment from unbelievers (and many believers that express embarrassment concerning these laws) and here are the 26 separate actions that merit the Death Penalty in the Law of Moses. There is a good chance I may have skipped one or two so if you notice one is missing feel free to let me know. I would like you to think upon each one of these with the remembrance that God has declared in His Law that these should be punished by death, they are not the personal additions of Moses or some redactor in later years.  I have listed in parentheses the Laws that are mentioned more than once.

1) Ex. 21:12 – Premeditated Murder (Num. 36:16-22)

2) Ex. 21:15 – Smiting Father and Mother

3) Ex. 21:16 – Kidnapping (Deut 24:7)

4) Ex. 21:17 – Cursing Father and Mother ( Lev. 20:9, Deut 21:21)

5) Ex 21:20 – Killing Slaves

6) Ex. 21:22 – Killing Pregnant Woman (and child)

7) Ex. 21:29 – Depraved Indifference Murder

8.  Ex. 22:18 – Witches

9) Ex. 22:19 – Bestiality (Lev. 20:15-16)

10) Ex. 22:20 – False Sacrifice

11) Ex. 22:21-24 – Oppressing Strangers

12) Ex. 22:22 – Afflicting Widows and Orphans

13) Ex. 22:14 – Sabbath-breaking (Num 15:32)

14) Lev. 20:2 – Child Sacrifice

15) Lev. 20:10 – Adultery (both partners, Deut 22:22)

16) Lev. 20:11 – Incest

17) Lev. 20:12 – Incest

18) Lev. 20:13 – Homosexuality

19) Lev. 20:14 – Unnatural Sexual Relations

20) Lev. 20:18 – Menstrual Relations

21) Lev. 21:9 – Daughter of a Priest that becomes a whore.

22) Deut 13:9 – False Prophets

23) Deut 17:5 – False Worship

24) Deut 19:19 – False Witness

25) Deut 22:21 – Whore promised in marriage (False Witness)

26) Deut 22:25 – Rape

Prepare to Meet Thy God

“Prepare to Meet Thy God” (Audio Available at the Link)

Preached February 6, 2011 at Ellisville Presbyterian Church

Amos 4:1-13

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, Who oppress the poor,  Who crush the needy,  Who say to your husbands, “Bring wine, let us drink!”.  The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness:

“ Behold, the days shall come upon you when He will take you away with fishhooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her,
And you will be cast into Harmon,”  Says the LORD.

“ Come to Bethel and transgress, at Gilgal multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven,  proclaim and announce the freewill offerings; for this you love, you children of Israel!”
Says the Lord GOD.

“ Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD. “ I also withheld rain from you, when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain on one city, I withheld rain from another city.
One part was rained upon, and where it did not rain the part withered. So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water, but they were not satisfied; yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD.  “ I blasted you with blight and mildew. When your gardens increased,
your vineyards, your fig trees, and your olive trees, the locust devoured them; yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD.

“ I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt; your young men I killed with a sword,
along with your captive horses;  I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD.  “ I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning;
yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the LORD. “ Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,

Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” For behold, He who forms mountains, and creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, and makes the morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth— The LORD God of hosts is His name.