John Piper Friday

I'll let John Piper speak for himself this week on Nominalism in the Church.

Phews 14: Monday, July 16, 2001.

MEANINGLESS RELIGION:
I preached yesterday (15/7/01) from Ecclesiastes 5:1-7. I had 4 points that I wanted to share with you all.

1) Religion can only be meaningful if it is directed towards the true God. This is implicit in verse 1.

2) Religion that comes to God to give rather than receive is meaningless. This is what is meant by the sacrifice of fools in verse 1. God does not need us, we need God this is foundational to the gospel, and yet so many christians live their lives with a mindset of giving back to God (attempting to repay the debt). We should always come to God seeking to be healed, and strengthened by Him. It is we who are impoverished.

3) Religion that makes false promises is meaningless (the vow of fools). Making promises to God that either we cannot keep, or do not intend to keep trivialises God. It treats Him like a man, and raises our intentions above His.

4) Meaningful religion arises only out of awe for who God is. Proverbs phrases it (multiple times) like this. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". Only if we perceive God as infinitely greater, more powerful, more significant, more wise, more pure, more righteous... than us can we begin to have a meaningful religion. Everthing else is like chasing after the wind.

To the last Ridge - II

Of being in the mud at Montauban, France, 1916.

"The dead lay everywhere. The deeper one dug, the more bodies one exhumed. Hands and faces protruded from the slimy, toppling walls of the trenches. Knees, shoulders, and buttocks poked from the foul morass, as many as the pebbles of a brook. Here had been a heavy slaughter of English lads four days before; so great had been the price in blood and sweat and tears of those few acres. There were also German dead, but it was hard to tell them from the resr, for khaki is grey when soaked and muddy.
Our clothes, our very underclothing, were ponderous with the weight of half and inch of mud on the outer surface, and nearly as much on the inner. Casualties were heavy in the sixty hours we were in that place. The days were bad, but sixteen hours of a cold, pitchy night was a burden not easily borne. We were shot at from three sides, and it was torment. There was no hot food and no prospect of it. We drank shellhole water, as it was too cold for the corpses to rot. We were soaked from head to feet (the feet that were never dry all that winter) with sweat and icy mud"

To the Last Ridge, W.H Downing. p 17. Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney (1998).

Strong Man

Jeremiah 9:23-24.

This is what the LORD says:
"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,

but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,"
declares the LORD.

Devils and Dust

I got my finger on the trigger
But I don't know who to trust
When I look into your eyes
There's just devils and dust
We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie
Home's a long, long way from us
I feel a dirty wind blowing
Devils and dust

I got God on my side
I'm just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
And fill it with devils and dust

Well I dreamed of you last night
In a field of blood and stone
The blood began to dry
The smell began to rise
Well I dreamed of you last night
In a field of mud and bone
Your blood began to dry
The smell began to rise

We've got God on our side
We're just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing
It'll turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust

Now every woman and every man
They want to take a righteous stand
Find the love that God wills
And the faith that He commands
I've got my finger on the trigger
And tonight faith just ain't enough
When I look inside my heart
There's just devils and dust

Well I've got God on my side
And I'm just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a dangerous thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust

It'll take your God filled soul

Fill it with devils and dust


This brilliant song by the Boss is written to express the devastating experience of young American soldiers in the Iraq war. It is a painful, stark and honest description of the way in which violence and fear can corrupt the soul. This is certainly the road away from the promised land; it is hope destroyed, love undone and faith exhausted.

John Piper Friday

If you didn't catch it in Sunday night's sermon:


"God’s holiness is his infinite value as the absolutely unique, morally perfect, permanent person that he is and who by grace has made himself accessible in Jesus Christ."

Wines worth trying

For September's tasting:

Nepenthe Wines, Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
2006 - Pinot Gris.


Pinot Gris as an unblended varietal is coming into vogue, especially coming out of regions known for great white wines - Adelaide Hills, Margaret River, Clare Valley. I was fortunate enough to visit Nepenthe on a recent trip to SA. They are best known for their Sauvignon Blanc, but I prefer this. Almost translucent, peach in colour, and very light in texture. It is herbaceous and sharp with a hint of orange zest.
We had it with a baby spinach, chorizo, roasted tomato and brie salad. Beautiful!

Emergency Sex

About 3 weeks ago I finished reading a book with this provocative title, 'Emergency Sex (and other desperate measures)'. It is the short recollections of 3 young people who worked for the United Nations in the ninety's spliced together chronologically. Their work spanned 4 continents; the conflict zones of Cambodia (where they all met), Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia and Liberia. Each person - Ken Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thompson - became involved with the UN for very different reasons and brought very different skills, motivations and expectations to their tasks. It is the convergence and divergence of these three's relationship that shapes the narrative, but it is their 'unedited' experiences of field work that forms the content of the book.
This is a raw, funny, confronting and troubling insight into the reality of international diplomatic work; It is an open window on the lives of the very ordinary people who work in extraordinary circumstances; it is an expose of the paradox that is the United Nations.
If you don't believe that human beings are capable of both great good and terrifying evil, this book is convincing evidence. It is also convincing evidence that this world is not a happy place for massive numbers of our fellow men, women and children.
I thoroughly recommend it. Thanks to my colleague on the clubbe ward at the Children's Hospital who lent it to me.

Here are some excerpts:

Andrew, Rwanda
"This is an average massacre by Rwandan standards, unremarkable in scale or circumstance. Several thousand civilians had gathered in the church grounds, promised protection by th Hutu governor. Hutu militias went methodically through the crowd instructing other Hutus to leave, and government soldiers cut off the escape routes. Then the governor fired his weapon in the air as a kill-the-tutsis signal and the young men drunk on banana beer hacked them all to pieces. It's hard work killing that many people in a confined space with only machetes and clubs, so the killers returned home to their families each night to rest and drink before the next days work. It took three days and so far we know of only two survivors...
What's difficult now, five weeks and four hundred bodies into the dig, is the pile of entwined corpses several yards down in the grave. There's just no way to find the bottom, no matter how often the backhoe goes in. It's a wicked game of pick-up-sticks, whrer I grab a leg or arm of what looks to be the easiest corpse to lift off, only to find that another part of the same bofy is buried under half a dozen others, all of which have the same problem. Sometimes I get obsessed over one that won't release and spend hours on it with a pick and trowel. This annoys my team, because they have to heave off other bodies just so I can extract mine, but I can't face the same body two days in a row."

Ken, Liberia
"We estimate that a third of the women in displaced persons camps have been raped. Half the population of the country was displaced during the war, so if we're right, that means one in six women has been raped. We give questionnaires to demobilized fighters and ten percent of the fighters admit to having raped more than ten times during the war. Not a single prosecution, investigation, UN report, press expose, nothing. It's as if 100,000 rapes never happened.
I shake Mr. Ignatius Peabody's hand. We shake our heads. He's going back out there, through the gates, through the checkpoints. I have to go to a morning staff meeting.
'Thankyou Mr. Ignatius. I can't promise that anything will happen with these reports, but I will pass them on to New York.'
'Ah say, ma people, what we have done-oh'
'Godspeed Ignatius'
'Tank Gawd for life, Mr. Ken.'"



Emergency Sex (and other desperate measures). Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thompson. Erbury Press, London (2004).

Lost

I walk along these streets at night,
my path is lit by all these bright lights.
The rapper tells my to "walk this way,"
His homeboy replies, "talk this way."

Coke tells me to "drink always,"
but Pepsi is the "choice of my generation."
By this shirt and you'll be cool.
Don't listen to others, live by your own rules.

But I don't know where to go.
And I don't know what to do.
I don't know where to go,
because I am lost without you.
I am...

Don't touch this. Please take that.
My head is spinning, can't find the track.
Everyone says that they have the truth,
but at the same time they ask, "what is truth?"

And I don't know where to go.
I don't know what to do.
Yes I don't know where to go,
because I am lost without you.
I am lost without you.
Yes I am...

John Piper Friday

"If God exists, then He is the measure of all things, and what He thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think. Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God. What is false is anti-God. Indifference to the truth is indifference to the mind of God. Pretense is rebellion against reality, and what makes reality reality is God. Our concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God. And all this is rooted in God's concern with God, or God's passion for the glory of God."


-Sorry I can't find the exact reference for this, though I think it is somewhere in The Pleasures of God.

To the last Ridge - I

Reading the first world war memoirs of W.H Downing* (see current reading menu). I was given the book by my father with the recommendation that this was 'the best' Australian war memoir.
It is a deeply emotional experience to read this book.
I feel sympathy for the young men whose lives were shattered. I feel revulsion at the horror of war. I feel pride for their incredible courage. I feel fondness for their larrikin humour. I feel shame and anger over the reality of evil. I feel unworthy of their sacrifice. I feel challenged by their persistance and perseverance...

Here are some excerpts. Tell me how they make you feel.

Scores of stammering German machine-guns spluttered violently, drowning the noise of the cannonade. The air was thick with bullets, swishing in a flat lattice of death. There were gaps in the lines of men - wide ones, small ones. The survivors spread across the front, keeping the line straight. There was no hesitation, no recoil, no dropping of the unwounded into shellholes. The bullets skimmed low, from knee to groin, riddling the tumbling bodies before they touched the ground. Still the line kept on.

Hundreds were mown down in the flicker of an eyelid, like great rows of teeth knocked from a comb, but still the line went on, thinning and stretching. Wounded riggled into shellholes or were hit again. Men were cut in two by streams of bullets. And still the line went on.

*To the Last Ridge, W.H Downing. Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney (1998).

Chaff

This picture sent in by Jill W.


Psalm 1:4-6

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.





A further reminder that is is an open series to anyone who has a photo that adds texture/colour/shape to a part of scripture. Email phil_and_al@yahoo.com.au

125th

Today at my church we held services for the 125th anniversary of ministry on the church property in Croydon. I was asked to pray in the evening service with thanks for the history of the church. I chose to modify David's prayer in 2 Samuel 7. Here is the text of my prayer.


Who are We, O Sovereign LORD, and what is this church, that you have brought us this far?
And now, Sovereign LORD, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving us a future, of your desire to see us prosper and not to harm us!
Do you deal with everyone this way, O Sovereign LORD? What more can we say?
You know what we are really like, Sovereign LORD. For the sake of your promise and according to your will, you have done all these great things and have shown them to us.
How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you--there is no other God. We have never even heard of another god like you!
What other people on earth are like your people? What other people, O God, have you redeemed from slavery to sin to be your own people? You have made a great name for yourself when you rescued your people from Sin and Death.
You have performed awesome miracles of salvation in your Son Jesus, and amongst us by the Holy Spirit. You have made us your people forever, and you, O LORD, have become our God.
And now, O LORD God, do as you have promised concerning your Son Jesus. May His name be honored forever so that all the world will say, 'The LORD Almighty is God’. And may your people, the church, prosper as they declare His praises.
O LORD Almighty, God and Father of our Lord Jesus, I have been bold enough to pray this prayer because you have revealed that you will build your church, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it! For you are God, O Sovereign LORD. Your words are truth, and you have promised these good things us.
And now, may it please you to bless this church, St James, our family and your people here. For when you grant a blessing to your servants, O Sovereign LORD, it is an eternal blessing!