The Timbrel & Dance Weekly

May 18, 2010

Vol.1 No.2

Bring to Ear the Silent Whisper

Bring to ear the silent whisper

   Of divine electing love;

Truth draw mercy near and kiss her,

   Reconciled in Jesus blood.

Bring to eye the hidden glory

   Of a Savior robed in light;

Let the dumb cry out before Thee,

  Wash me Savior or I die!

Heaven’s Warrior, cut this sinner

  To the marrow of the bone;

Circumcise the heart forever,

  Name this wretched worm thine own.

O thou dead heart bound in darkness

  Now obey the King’s command:

Rise from hell’s death bed and hearken-

  Rise and for His glory stand!

Holy Spirit bathe this sinner

  In the Savior’s cleansing blood.

Bring to ear the silent whisper

  Of divine electing love.           ●ejr3

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Quote of the Week

“If lies paid double, the government could pay off the National Debt, but who could collect the money?...

“...If we would be sure not to speak amiss, it might be as well to speak as little as possible; for if all men's sins were divided into two bundles, half of them would be sins of the tongue.

‘If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.’

“...If you do not cut a bit off your tongues, at least season them with the salt of grace. Praise God more, and blame neighbors less. Any goose can cackle, any fly can find a sore, any empty barrel can give forth sound, and briar can tear a man's flesh. The flies will not go down your throat if you keep your mouth shut, and no evil speaking will come out either. Think much, but say little…;  and, above all, ask the great Lord to set a watch over your lips.” C.H.Spurgeon (1834-1892),

                  from John Ploughman’s Talk   ●t&dw

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Feature Article: Apologetically Apologetic

   For Christ sent me... to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.  For since, ...the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. …[W]e preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, ...Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  (from 1 Corinth 1:17-24)

   And I, brethren, ...did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 

   However, we speak wisdom…, yet not the wisdom of this age, ...we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew…  But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.  …[N]o one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we... speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches… But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  (from 2Corinth 1:1-14)

For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. (2Corinth 13:8)

   But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…  1 Peter 3:14-15

I cannot imagine when the Apostle Peter wrote 1Peter 3:15, that he envisioned untold volumes of intellectual, philosophic writings in “defense” of the Christian faith. The context dictates otherwise. He was writing to a people whose faith was being tested by fire. Under affliction and persecution he exhorts them to bear patiently and to adorn the character of Christ (2:15-23). As they thus sanctified the Lord in their hearts, it was to be expected that some would ask them why they didn’t act “normal” in the midst of intense trials. Be prepared, he says, to give a reason, to defend your “abnormal” behavior. The implication is clear - proclaim to them Christ. Here is the most effective “evangelism.”

I am certainly not against apologetics per se, but too often Peter’s apologia has been used to highjack the gospel and carry it off to ivory towers of worldly intellectualism.  It is as if the clear teaching of 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 were non-existent, or “really didn’t mean that.”  In defense of their “defense” some run to Mars Hill (Acts 17). “Look here,” they say, “Paul, the intellectual, meets them on their own ground.” Really? It seems to me he merely used his incidental knowledge their own philosophers as a point of contact, and from there (as Spurgeon put it many years later) “cut straight cross country and preached  Christ” to them. Not surprisingly, the result was that he was mocked by the majority; but some believed, the Lord having opened their hearts by the power of the gospel, not by the philosophical logic and genius of Paul.

I am not at all being anti-intellectual or anti-scholarship. Look to the great puritan and early reformed “defenders” of the faith. Whatever mental acumen and intellectual power they had was focused entirely on expounding the scriptures in the exaltation and proclamation of Christ; and they kept their intellect always under the authority of God’s Word. Here is true wisdom; here is true scholarship. Ironically, it is an apologetic in which all of God’s children, from the least to the greatest can engage. The smallest sapling of truth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can fell the mightiest oak of human intellectualism.

We must stop being apologetic (pun intended) about the gospel and its apparent foolishness in the world’s eyes. Never attempt to make the old rugged cross intellectually “respectable” with a heavy coat of blood-hiding paint. We must never think of “defending the faith” as protecting God or His truth from the onslaught of the wisdom of the world. As Van Til put it, “God is not to be debated, He is to be proclaimed.” Truth is its own defense. It does not come wrapped in eggshells. The Lion is not toothless. The Kingdom of God is not propped up with sticks of human logic or theological constructs. Though all heaven and earth by shaken, we have come to a kingdom that cannot be moved (Heb 12:27-28).  Though the mountains crash to the sea, the River of Grace flowing from God’s throne can not be diverted from its banks (Psalm 46). Its pools of still water ever remain to refresh the souls of weary saints (Psalm 23). 

If I am passionate about this subject it is because it is deeply personal to me. From about my twelfth year, being a deeply introverted thinker, I began pondering with intensity the nature of truth. Later, in college, when I studied the “great philosophers,” I found that I had already wrestled with, and rejected, most of their precepts. Then one evening in my twenty-second year I engaged in an extended intellectual debate with someone about the merits of Christianity. The longer this “witness” debated with me, the surer I was of the intellectually unacceptable nature of the gospel.  Then we “happened” upon John 1:1-3. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it was as if scales had fallen from my eyes, as the Holy Spirit, in those words, revealed the living Christ to me for the first time. All my young years of philosophizing and religious debating were as nothing to me in that moment.

Anything of Christ and His kingdom that I have learned since, has come by the Spirit and the Word. Not that I have perfect understanding, or am infallible in all things biblical - far from it. But I do insist that this Christ with whom we have to do, and the truth embodied in Him, cannot be received by the natural man. Flesh and blood cannot reveal it, only the Father by His Spirit (Matt 16:17; Jn 6:44-45). Let us be convinced: all of the world’s wisdom combined can never raise the dead.  ●ejr3

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Devotional Minute:Solid Faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Hebrews 11:1

Notice the how writer juxtaposes the intangibles of faith with the foundational certainty of faith. Faith, though it deals with currently intangible things which are hoped for and unseen, yet rests upon a foundation which is solid and “evidential,” in a legal sense.

First, the faith delivered once and for all to the saints (Jude 3) rests upon actual historical facts.
From creation to the resurrection of Christ, actual events in world history comprise the gospel.

Second, the inspired Word of God provides infallible truth from which faith springs, and upon which it rests.

Finally, the reality of the witness of the Spirit in our understanding, and in our experience, undergirds our faith as we partake of the “earnest” of our salvation.

To the child of God, saving faith is far from “blind faith.”  ●ejr3

Produced and Edited by Ed Ross, pastor at Springwood Chapel.
Respond to:  pastored@ springwoodchapel.com
Also available at SpringwoodChapel.com & ChristMyCovenant.com.  Please visit.       
© 2010  E.J.Ross III,  Springwood Publications.