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Gospel Spiritual Growth

God’s Kindness Leads to Repentance

Romans 2:1-11 Chapel Message

Romans 2:1-11 Chapel Message
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Creation Society Theology

#FakeNews: How People Suppress the Truth

Romans 1:18-23 | Fake News: How People Suppress The Truth | Chapel Message

All the chapel messages are on the Videos Page.

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Puritans Suffering & Trials

John Owen on Perilous Seasons

Joel Beeke has a list of resources from the Puritans and their sermons during plague times, or on the subject of pestilence.

Below is a sample from a sermon by John Owen who was teaching on the topic of what he called, “perilous seasons”. Owen answers the question of why plague/pestilence seasons are so perilous. Here is what he says:

1. Because of the infection. Churches and professors are apt to be infected with it. The historians tell us of a plague at Athens, in the second and third years of the Peloponnesian war, whereof multitudes died; and of those that lived, few escaped but they lost a limb, or part of a limb – some an eye, others an arm, and others a finger – the infection was so great and terrible. And truly, brethren, where this plague comes – of the visible practice of unclean lusts under an outward profession – though men do not die, yet one loses an arm, another an eye, another a leg by it: the infection diffuses itself to the best of professors, more or less. This makes it a dangerous and perilous time. 

2. It is dangerous, because of the effects; for when predominant lusts have broken all bounds of divine light and rule, how long do you think that human rules will keep them in order? They break through all in such a season as the apostle describes. And if they come to break through all human restraints as they have broken through divine, they will fill all things with ruin and confusion. 

3. They are perilous in the consequence: which is, the judgments of God. When men do not receive the truth in the love of it, but have pleasure in unrighteousness, God will send them strong delusion, to believe a he. So II Thess. 2:10-11 is a description how the Papacy came upon the world. Men professed the truth of religion, but did not love it they loved unrighteousness and ungodliness; and God sent them Popery. That is the interpretation of the place, according to the best divines. Will you profess the truth, and at the same time love unrighteousness? The consequence is, security under superstition and ungodliness. This is the end of such a perilous season; and the like may be said as to temporal judgments, which I need not mention. 

Let us now consider what is our duty in such a perilous season:

1. We ought greatly to mourn for the public abominations of the world, and of the land of our nativity wherein we live. I would only observe that place in Ezekiel 9, God sends out His judgments, and destroys the city; but before, He sets a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof. You will find this passage referred in your books to Revelation 7:3, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” I would only observe this, that such only are the servants of God, let men profess what they will, “who mourn for the abominations that are done in the land.” The mourners in the one place are the servants of God in the other. And truly, brethren, we are certainly to blame in this matter. We have been almost well contented that men should be as wicked as they would themselves, and we sit still and see what would come of it. Christ hath been dishonored, the Spirit of God blasphemed, and God provoked against the land of our nativity; and yet we have not been affected with these things. I can truly say in sincerity, I bless God, I have sometimes labored with my own heart about it. But I am afraid we, all of us, come exceedingly short of our duty in this matter. “Rivers of waters,” saith the Psalmist, “run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law.” Horrible profanation of the name of God, horrible abominations, which our eyes have seen, and our ears heard, and yet our hearts been unaffected with them! Do you think this is a frame of heart God requireth of us in such a season – to be regardless of all, and not to mourn for the public abominations of the land? The servants of God will mourn. I could speak, but am not free to speak, to those prejudices which keep us from mourning for public abominations; but they may be easily suggested unto all your thoughts, and particularly what they are that have kept us from attending more unto this duty of mourning for public abominations. And give me leave to say, that, according to the Scripture rule, there is no one of us can have any evidence that we shall escape outward judgments that God will bring for these abominations, if we have not been mourners for them; but that as smart a revenge, as to outward dispensations, may fall upon us as upon those that are most guilty of them, no Scripture evidence have we to the contrary. How God may deal with us, I know not. 

Sermon, 2 Timothy 3:1
Categories
Society

Networked

The big beach book that I read last year was Niall Ferguson’s The Square and the Tower. It was a book about networks. Who knew that the network effects of globalism would be illustrated in 2020 by a global pandemic!

But the other network effect has been to drive people around the world away from text and into video.

Ferguson says:

The rate of growth of the global network may be slowing, in terms of the number of new Internet users and smartphone owners added each year, but ti shows no sign of stopping. In other respects– for example, the transitions from text to image and video, and from keyboard to microphone interphace– it is speeding up. Literacy will ultimately cease to be a barrier to connectedness.

The Square and the Tower, Ch. 58, Network Outage, 401.

As I get ready for another Zoom call (should have bought stock in them) and have now filmed nine videos in the last two weeks, I can agree with Ferguson’s prediction.

We need to be thoughtful about how our lives will be changed by the Covid-19 virus, but also by its social consequences, networks all.

Categories
Gospel Suffering & Trials

The Promise of Pruning John 15:1-5

The Promise of Pruning: A Covid Crisis Sermon | John 15:1-5| Calvary Grace
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Gospel

5 Reformations

Romans 1 :16-17
Categories
Scripture Spiritual Growth

The Illuminated Bible

Since the quarantine, I’ve been teaching through the book of Romans online in daily chapels four days per week. I’ve loved being back in Romans! (The talks are collected on our Videos page)

It has been a strong reminder of the opportunities we all have to simply share the Scriptures, to unfold their truth, and to trust God for the results.

Prepare to Be Illuminated

I prepare each day’s chapel message by praying for God to give me illumination. I want to be illuminated by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:14) so that I can understand the day’s passage. JI Packer described illumination in this way:

It is not a giving of new revelation, but a work within us that enables us to grasp and to love the revelation that is there before us in the biblical text as heard and read, and as explained by teachers and writers. Sin in our mental and moral system clouds our minds and wills so that we miss and resist the force of Scripture. God seems to us remote to the point of unreality, and in the face of God’s truth we are dull and apathetic. The Spirit, however, opens and unveils our minds and attunes our hearts so that we understand (Eph. 1:17-18; 3:18-19; 2 Cor. 3:14-16; 4:6). As by inspiration he provided Scripture truth for us, so now by illumination he interprets it to us. Illumination is thus the applying of God’s revealed truth to our hearts, so that we grasp as reality for ourselves what the sacred text sets forth.

Concise Theology

Illumination is essential to sound biblical understanding.

Be Careful

Without this illumination, my historical-grammatical hermeneutic will make me become foundered like a horse that eats too much grass without digesting it properly. What ought to be nutritious (the Word of God) becomes too potent and powerful if it is not taken in with humility (James 4:10, 1 Pet 5:6) and faith (Heb 11:6).

We need to take care to read the Scriptures, asking for them to be illuminated to us. Jeremiah announces:

Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

Jeremiah 23:29

For this reason, I want to pray for illumination when I am prepping studies in the book of Romans or working through any portion of Scripture.

The Lion Has Roared

Famously, Amos described the revelation of Scripture from God as being like the roar of a lion. Amos said:

The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?”

Amos 3:8

This reminds us that the spiritual dynamic of God’s revealed word will impel us to spiritually respond. Now a prophet like Amos would respond by prophesying. A non-apostle, non-prophet like us today would simply respond in believing obedience to start with, and then Spirit-empowered witness flowing out of that.

Charles Spurgeon has been misquoted about this biblical analogy. But what he did say was this:

“Suppose a number of persons were to take it into their heads that they had to defend a lion, full-grown king of beasts! There he is in the cage, and here come all the soldiers of the army to fight for him. Well, I should suggest to them, if they would not object, and feel that it was humbling to them, that they should kindly stand back, and open the door, and let the lion out! I believe that would be the best way of defending him, for he would take care of himself; and the best ‘apology’ for the gospel is to let the gospel out.”

Christ and His Co-Workers, 1866 sermon

The Scriptures are like a lion’s roar, and we ought to ask for God’s illuminating protection (!) as we read the bible.

This is the kind of illuminated bible study I want to do as I study the book of Romans. I pray that you will be illuminated too.



If you’ve read this far, could you answer a few quick questions for me?

Would you prefer to get The Humfreys content from Christel and Clint in your inbox weekly? That includes our articles for Revive Our Hearts, The Gospel Coalition and more? And would you be willing to pay to have extras in the newsletter such as audio interviews, free ebooks, and other resources from Christel and Clint about life together as a ministry couple? What would you be willing to pay to get that exclusive content in a weekly newsletter? Would it be worth $7 -10 dollars per month with no advertising?

We are considering switching to a subscription-based newsletter that gives us more freedom to talk directly to our small (!) group of readers. It makes it easier, and more worthwhile for us to speak about our home life, our opinions (politics!), and share personal stories as well as ministry resources. We would also release special e-books which we are editing, but bypassing the traditional publishers. Subscribers would get exclusive access to all that stuff…

Let me know your thoughts. You can send me a note at clint.humfrey@gmail.com

Thank you for reading!

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Canada

Chapel Messages from Romans 11AM MST Tues-Fri

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Canada Church Fathers

Saint Patrick and Human Trafficking

Nearly a decade ago, the National Post had a section called ‘Holy Post’ edited by Charles Lewis. He kindly published this little article I wrote on Saint Patrick:

Green beer sales mark the globalized celebration of St. Patrick’s Day and for many who are only Irish once a year little more is thought of.   But it may be time for St. Patrick’s Day to become an occasion of global awareness for something more than the taste of Guinness, namely the problem of human trafficking.

Patrick was only 16 when he was seized by human traffickers.  Removed from his family and home in Roman Britain, he was transported across the Irish Sea to the foreign surroundings of Dalriada in what is now Northern Ireland.  The traffickers sold Patrick to a local warlord who exploited the young Briton for six years of forced labor.

Patrick escaped and fled Ireland, yet his conversion to Christianity while a slave gave him a mission to return to minister to his former captors.  From that point Patrick’s ministry in Ireland became so significant that his identity and the country’s are difficult to separate.   Yet it is easily forgotten that Patrick’s early experience of his adopted country was as a victim of human trafficking. 

Today when people think of slavery they rarely think of a modern problem, but rather something belonging to earlier centuries. But in the transnational world that is ‘flattened’ modern slavery can take many different forms than those associated with plantations or estates in the Caribbean or American South.

In one scenario, traffickers will promise jobs in foreign countries only to put the victim in a permanent indebtedness so that they must work  without rights and without hope of freedom.  With no advocates in a foreign land of foreign language the victims are forced to rely on the traffickers for their survival.  Long hours of demanding work in unsafe conditions become the desperate reality for these victims that had been promised a job in a land of opportunity.

Another scenario has traffickers offering the allure of marriage or glamorous jobs in modeling or acting in order to force young women into prostitution.  Such exploitation occurs at local levels in every city of  the world but for victims of sex trafficking, the removal from one country to another isolates them further.  Without the language skills to communicate in the foreign country, the sex trade victim cannot seek help even if support services are available locally.

Another horrific product of the globalized sex trafficking economy is the enticement offered to parents to sell their children into prostitution.  The demand to stock child prostitutes for sex tourism destinations such as Thailand is great. In sex trade economics, an unthinkable act by a parent becomes all too commonplace.

Human trafficking is a global and local problem. In order to fight it we need to admit its existence.   Maybe on this St. Patrick’s Day we could take up the challenge by caring less about all things green, and a bit more about the life of Patrick himself.   If we could imagine what life was like for St. Patrick we may have greater empathy for the plight of victims of human trafficking in our communities.

Categories
Canada Gospel Spiritual Growth Suffering & Trials

Socially Distant? Get into God

Charles Spurgeon saw the effects of the plague during his ministry in London. Reflecting on the ninety-first Psalm he noted the comfort and security of the words:

no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.

(Ps 91:10)

He told a story about seeing these verses in a shop window. My friend Paul Martin wrote about this incident recently.

With the COVID-19 virus pandemic requiring people to be “socially distant” it is a good time to consider where our security lies.In Spurgeon’s commentary on Psalm 91, he addressed the question:

Get into God and you dwell in all good, and ill is banished far away. It is not because we are perfect or highly esteemed among men that we can hope for shelter in the day of evil, but because our refuge is the Eternal God, and our faith has learned to hide beneath his sheltering wing.

Treasury of David, Psalm 91.

This is the response of anyone in calamity. They get into God. They seek him, pursue him, and find refuge in him. Although they may be socially distant from others, they are secure “in Christ”.

As Spurgeon explained, there is a beautiful way that God gives comfort in calamities and security for those who are sick. Spurgeon said:

It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die.

Treasury of David, Psalm 91.

If you are home from work, self-quarantined, or otherwise unable to fellowship with other believers, then take this opportunity to get into God.