westportexperiment

The ineffable patience of God

So, although in God there can be no suffering, and patience has its name apatiendo, from suffering, yet a patient God we not only faithfully believe, but also wholesomely confess. But the patience of God, of what kind and how great it is, His, Whom we say to be impassible, yet not impatient, nay even most patient, in words to unfold this who can be able? Ineffable is therefore that patience, as is His jealousy, as His wrath and whatever there is like to these. For if we conceive of these as they be in us, in Him are there none. We, namely, can feel none of these without molestation: but be it far from us to surmise that the impassible nature of God is liable to any molestation. But like as He is jealous without any darkening of spirit, angry without any perturbation, pitiful without any pain, repents Him without any wrongness in Him to be set right; so is He patient without anything of passion.

-Augustine

The miracle of (and threat against) life

Here is a beautiful video representing the miraculous formation of human life from conception. Right now, such precious lives hang in the balance. For years, the majority of our nation has turned the other way, pretending that abortion is merely a clinical procedure, that a fetus magically becomes a baby when it is wanted, yet reverts to a subhuman mass of tissue when it is not. Because of this, such hidden scenes of tender majesty are cut short in the butchery of abortion. (For those with cast iron stomachs, one can easily find videos online to confirm.)

How long will we speak for our wallets? For our private interests? For our unbridled appetites? How long will we vote for what is superficial, doubtful, or secondary at best, and support what is altogether unthinkable?

God help our land. And God help those precious lives waiting for us self-absorbed Americans to give them a voice.

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Listen to a message on the plight of the unborn. Or, download here.

Habla por los silenciosos

Tu fuiste un milagro. Ellos tambien.

Diez dias despues de la concepcion, el cuerpo de tu madre empezo a cambiar. Para ti. Pasando once días mas, tu corazon estaba latiendo y bombeando sangre. Con un tipo de sangre distinto de el de tu madre.

“Tu me hiciste en el vientre de mi madre.”

A seis y media semanas, tenias brotes de dientes. En dos mas, estuvieron presentes todos los sistemas de tu cuerpo. Podias chupar tu pulgar. Por diez semanas podias entrecerrar tus ojitos, tragar, y mover la lengua. Tus dedos podian agarrar. No habias nacido. Pero estabas ahi. Muy humano y muy vivo.

“Te alabare; porque formidables, maravillosas son tus obras; Estoy maravillado.”

Por tu tercer mes, estabas respirando liquido. Pronto respirarias aire! Para ese tiempo tenias uñas. A la decimosexta semana, tenias pestañas. Para el cuarto mes despues de la concepcion, tenias huellas digitales desarrolladas, y tus papilas gustativas estaban funcionales. Eras una maravilla en construccion, aunque ocultado en un velo de carne.

“No fue encubierto de ti mi cuerpo, bien que en oculto fui formado, y entretejido en lo mas profundo de la tierra.”

Y asi creciste. Te durmiste, despertaste — y durmiste de nuevo. Te dio hipo. Bailaste. Hasta soñaste. Podias estar feliz y hasta sentir molesto. Padre y Madre no te podian ver. Hermano y hermana no podian hechar un vistazo. Pero no te vio alguien alli?

“Mi embrion vieron tus ojos, y en tu libro estaban escritas todas aquellas cosas que fueron luego formadas, sin faltar una de ellas.”

Y asi creciste. Hasta que comenzaron las contracciones. Involuntariamente, pero por diseño. Planeado por Dios. Un Dios bueno, un Dios todopoderoso y sabio, para mostrar su mano de obra al mundo.

“Cuan preciosos me son, oh Dios, tus pensamientos! Cuan grande es la suma de ellos!”

Dios te hizo. Y les hizo a ellos. Pero tu viviste. Tu vida fue salvada. Otros viven, pero sus preciosas vidas estan amenazadas. No son una “eleccion,” son una vida—una vida humana, es mas. Estan ahi donde nosotros una ves estuvimos.

Debemos protegerlos. Debemos hablar y no guardar silencio. Porque aun no pueden hablar por si mismos.

“Abre tu boca por el mudo en el juicio de todos los desvalidos.”

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Llame si necesita ayuda o consejo: 401-528-7613.

Shocking divorce statistics

Society is imploding. And marriage is ground zero. O God, spare us, and grant us repentance and reconciliation!

The blessed God

I recently preached on the words of Christ to His faithful servants on the last day, “Enter into the joy of thy Lord.” This text, among other things, opens up a window into the joy, the happiness, or what some biblical texts speak of as the “blessedness of God” (Rom. 9:5, 1 Tim. 1:11, 6:15). It is the joy of the Lord.

God is the self-sufficient One, who enjoys true happiness in and of Himself. One Swiss Reformed theologian, Benedict Pictet (1655-1724) said of God, “Who would not call God happy, who is in need of nothing, finds comfort in himself, and possesses all things; is free from all evil and filled with all good?”

When Christ speaks to the believer on the last day and ushers him with open arms into “the joy of the Lord,” He is welcoming that believer into the full participation of God’s happiness – at least as far as a creature can possibly sustain in the narrow limits of his being. What a grand thought. God wants to share His joy!

Are you, friend, truly happy? Can you be happy without the blessed God? Come to Him, then, through Christ – through whom He lavishly pours out joy “unspeakable and full of glory.”

Are we born as blank slates?

Here’s a report on an interesting scientific study that confirms what the Bible tells us after all. Our Creator has designed us with an innate sense of morality.

The Spirit & the Bride

For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and every kind of grace; but the Spirit is truth. Those, therefore, who do not partake of Him, are neither nourished into life from the mother’s breasts, nor do they enjoy that most limpid fountain which issues from the body of Christ; but they dig for themselves broken cisterns out of earthly trenches, and drink putrid water out of the mire, fleeing from the faith of the Church lest they be convicted; and rejecting the Spirit, that they may not be instructed.

-Irenaeus of Lyons (d. ca. 202)

A new (and alarming) declaration of indepedence

Recent days have shown how far some judges will go to impose their views on the majority of citizens. Just yesterday, one solitary judge in Utah by fiat overturned that state’s constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. This right on the heels of the same in New Mexico. On a purely political level, this trend ought to be alarming.

And yet, this cannot be alarming merely because the will of the citizens of Utah or other such states has been steamrolled. In our democratic America, it is ever and always “we the people.” If a judge overrules the will of the people, then there is a defiant outcry. But if a judge rubber-stamps the current of popular opinion, applause erupts. Yet, what if the majority of the people are wrong? (Cue gasps.) Yes, I did just suggest the unthinkable. But there it is. And if they ever are wrong, a judge could and should overrule their wrong decisions. And deal with the fallout unflinchingly.

What happened in Utah should outrage the people, within and without the state. But not because a single judge crossed their will, enshrined by law. What should shock the folks of Utah and the rest of the United States is that God’s law has been overturned.

That is evident for those who do not willfully close their eyes. Nature speaks. The male and female bodies were designed for each other. Pick up that anatomy book again and review. In detail. Behold the signature craftsmanship of God! The unnaturalness of man and man or woman and woman is obvious. How? Barrenness is not a painful exception in such unions; it is an inflexible law. This barrier to conception and childbearing is a clear stamp of God’s total disapproval.

To this testimony of nature, God adds His revealed Word. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Lev. 18:22).

Judges who overturn God’s law will have to reckon with God. And citizens who – by their elected representatives – overturn God’s will will answer to Him as well. We have great reason to fear, both people and officials, elected and unelected. We have been transgressing God’s law for decades, flagrantly disregarding His commandments and sanctioning them after the fact by law or decree. Yesterday was but another step in a long process. Having given our stamp of approval to sex outside of marriage, to no-fault divorce, and even to the inhumanity of abortion, it is not terribly surprising that same-sex marriage eventually gets a pass. Most heterosexuals have abandoned their moral high ground to critique anything they may not prefer.

We are effectively writing a new declaration of independence. From God. And the real alarm should be that we are sorely trying His patience, and that His patience will at some point come to an abrupt and jarring end. How long will God withhold His hand of judgment? How long will He indulge our prodigal orgy of lawlessness? I genuinely fear that our day of reckoning is coming. Whether by cyber-terrorism, or by an unstoppable epidemic, or by some other fearful national calamity, it is coming. And that is only the beginning, when one reckons with the fact that temporal judgments are omens of those beyond death. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psa. 9:17).

O, that we might come to our senses! All of us – “we the people.” And with broken hearts and tears of sorrow, that we might pledge our allegiance to God once again, and to His Christ.

No adults allowed!

Mark 10:13-16, “And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.”

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Tomorrow, we will be considering this memorable story of Jesus welcoming and blessing the children. First and foremost, we shall see that these little ones do not get “put out” of the adults-only circle of the worthy. No, children are properly citizens of the Kingdom. All who bring their children to Jesus may bring them precisely because theirs is the Kingdom.

But what is more, not only does Jesus’ Kingdom include children. His Kingdom only includes children! Placarded on the gates of this Kingdom, with royal seal affixed, are the words, “no adults allowed.” None who feel adequate before Him, none who feel ‘entitled’ by their long resume of attainments, by their matured and more penetrating minds, by their boasted seniority. Oh no, none of that! Seniority disqualifies from the Kingdom. Only children will receive His saving blessing. Only the inadequate, the insufficient, the undeveloped, and the weak belong. And more, only those who with childlike simplicity receive Jesus as He is – holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.

I think one of the beauties of this Kingdom mystery lies in the King Himself. He only accepts children because He was a child once. Yes, the Son of God did not become a man fully formed. He didn’t bypass childhood. No, the Lord of all embraced this weakness. And unlike so many adults who forget they were children once, Jesus never forgot. To be sure, there is a natural forgetfulness. Memories fade with time. Yet some of that fading is culpable. How often we forget what it was like to be a child! We can be gruff with children and shoo them away just like the disciples, because we fail to remember our childhoods. We can shut them out because we are in on what is really important. Shame on us.

But not so with Jesus! He got angry at the disciples for shooing away those precious children. Jesus, the childlike One, who was “meek and lowly in heart,” had not forgotten what it was like to be a child. And so with the utmost tenderness, He welcomes them. He takes up their little bodies into his arms, He puts his hand on that disheveled head and blesses.

Darkest before the dawn

We have just resumed our series on the Old Testament books of 1 & 2 Kings during our morning Lord’s Day services. Picking up after the ministry of Elisha, things go from bad to worse. The glory fades and darkness drowns the light. But Jonathan Edwards poignantly observes the greater significance in greater story:

The declining of the glory of this legal dispensation made way for the introducing the more glorious dispensation of the gospel. The declining of the glory of the legal dispensation was to make way for the introducing of the evangelical dispensation that was so much more glorious, so that the legal dispensation had no glory in comparison of it. The glory of the ancient dispensation such as was in Solomon’s time, consisting so much in external glory, was but a childish glory in comparison of the spiritual glory of the dispensation introduced by Christ. The church under the Old Testament was a child under tutors and governors, and God dealt with it as a child. Those pompous externals are called by the Apostle, ‘weak and beggarly elements.’ It was fit that those things should be diminished as Christ approached, as John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, speaking of Christ, says, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease,’ John 3:30. ‘Tis fit that the twinkling stars should gradually withdraw their glory when the sun is approaching towards his rising.

As with Israel and Judah of old, so the night now closes on the West. But whatever may be the particulars in God’s hidden plan, we are assured that light will break forth again – only infinitely greater than before. “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him” (Psa. 72:8-11).