THE EXPERIENCE OF OUR FIRST GRANDDAUGHTER

The events of the last week have left Charity and I drained emotionally. We were expecting our first granddaughter this February. But unexpectedly, the Lord had other plans for her. Eric and Leslie were expecting their first child and so was all our family! After four months of pregnancy, tests showed the baby had developed Cystic Hygroma. They gave them no hope. You can only imagine the depths of agony and grief they suffered -- while hoping against hope. This week the doctors could find no heartbeat.

This puts a perspective on the subject of life in the mother's womb. While we have always believed that life is formed in the mother's womb. We believe God is the giver of life. The moment God breathes life into a body is the moment there is life for eternity.



We believe God controls life and death of every single person that is ever born. God doesn't give us His reasons for His decisions to give life. We just have to accept what God's decisions are.



Those of us who have an inquiring mind would like to delve into the mind of God in these matters. Every life from time has been planned by God. I know there are many who have plummeted into this matter of life and death.



What I want to say, our first granddaughter today is in the care of God. All I know, now today, she is no longer a child and she is perfect. Since I haven't been to Heaven, we are only left to explore the idea of what heaven is going to be like in eternity.



Eric and Leslie had to make some decisions about this matter, and they did just fine. Choices are not easy in these situations of course, and many of us have our idea about what we would do, but no one knows until you are in the crisis of faith yourself. I have learned Eric and Leslie did just wonderful. Eric said, "why do the things that grow your faith have to hurt so bad?"



I want to thank many friends and our family who have entered into this experience with us. Thank you for crying with us and praying for Katie, Eric and Leslie, and the rest of the families who love them. Thank you for your continued prayers for Leslie's recovery.



First, Eric tells me his church family have been just wonderful in their support and care and prayer. They have been there for them in prayer and physically. What a blessing of Christian fellowship.



Secondly, I want to thank our church family who were in our church in Altoona for their support and prayers. It's been eleven years since we were the pastor, but they are still considered our church family. Hardly a day goes by that we don't give thanks for all those wonderful folks. Personal friends I might say. They are not only our friends but our children's as well.

Thank you all for your love to Eric and Leslie.

Drafted by Charles Whisnant, proof read by Charity Whisnant

How to Kill Sin in Your Life

Today we continue John MacArthur's article on How to Kill Sin in Your Life. Each day we face this problem of sin. Sin is not only in us, but all around us. And Satan and the Flesh is busy getting our attention away from Christ and His glory. Thus we need to focus on Christ as a source for our strength against sin.

2. A Heart Fixed on God.

Second, in order to gain victory over sin, you must have a heart fixed on God. You must love Him more than you love your sin.

The Psalmist said in Psalm 57:7, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed." What did he mean by that? He was speaking of undivided devotion to God! He was referring to a wholeness in spiritual life where he was given wholly to God. This attitude must be true in your heart if you are to conquer sin. You must be wholly devoted to God in every area of life.

You cannot tolerate sin in any one area, even if it seems like a relatively small area. You must eradicate sin everywhere.

You can’t starve it out and kill it in one spot, but then allow it to remain somewhere else. If sin lives anywhere it will crawl all over everywhere. It is the most noxious, fastest growing weed in existence. It will not confine itself to one flower bed. Left unchecked, even for a short time, it will soon take over everywhere.

The Psalmist said in Psalm 119:6, "Then shall I not be ashamed." When? When will you not be ashamed? "When I have respect unto all thy commandments." In other words, our lives are not going to be right or without shame until we give proper respect to every command of God. And that is to deal with every issue of sin in our lives. The only unashamed life is the life of one who is totally fixed on God; everything has been dealt with.

3. Meditate on the Word.

Third, the victorious Christian life is a life that dwells on the Word of God (cf. Psalm 1:2).

The way to kill sin in your life is to feed it Scripture. Scripture is a spiritual weed-killer. It will poison sin.

Whatever really controls your mind, controls your behavior; so keep out the garbage (of worldly thinking) and saturate the soil of your mind with a steady diet of God’s glorious truth.

Sin can’t grow in a Spirit-controlled life. And the Spirit controls our thinking through the Word of Christ (Col. 3:16-17; cf. Eph. 5:18; Rom. 12:2). If you want to kill sin, you must give yourself to the Word. That means you have to read it, listen to it, learn it, study it, and think about it.

4. Commune with God in Prayer.

These are so very basic, but fourth, you must commune with God in prayer.

This circles back around to the first point that I gave you. True prayer gives the heart a sense of its own vile character and renews the hatred of sin. It agrees with God about what sin is, recognizing that any violation of God’’s law is a direct affront to Him. John Owen said, "He who pleads with God for the remission of sin also pleads with his own heart to detest it."

Somewhere along the line in your own prayer life you need to get honest. You need to begin to say to God, "I want You to reveal my sin, I want You to stir it up in me. I want You to show it to me. I want You to blow away the dust that is covering it. I want You to peel off the things that have been hiding it away in my life, so that it becomes manifest and visible to me. I want to see the reality of my sin. I want You to show it to me just the way it is." That is a vital part of your communion with God.

When you pray to God it must be an honest confession. The true prayers of repentance go something like this, "God show me all the sins of my life, reveal all of them, uncover every little corner of my life. Bring it up and may it become as detestable to me as it is to You. May I never do that again, and may You give me the strength to see it go away."

Prayer exposes secret sins. Prayer weakens prevailing sins. Prayer finds strength in fellowship with the Holy God to kill sin in our lives.

continue next

"How to Kill Sin in Your Life"

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Footnote: I have read John MacArthur for over thirty years now, to me he is like Charles Spurgeon. Thus I read and listen to John the way I would Spurgeon. If you can hear John teach on radio that would be good. I have often said, that my preaching and teaching has been influenced by John for thirty years. If you want to know what I believe about the Christian life, about becoming a Christian and about the local church and the end times, I follow his thinking. I have studied the Bible now for over fifty years, just getting started I might say. I do not think that I have the ability unto my self alone to know the word of God, but I can study from those who have a better ability. Then the Holy Spirit can direct your spirit to believe its from God's word.

Often people will say, "I don't understand the Word?" And they are correct. Thus you need to read first the Bible, and then there are helps which will guide you into a better understanding of the Bible. But choose your helps carefully. And I would say if you follow John's understanding of the Word you would be much wiser. After a while you catch the idea of how to understand the Word yourself.

Listen to preaching and teaching that teach the meaning of the text in its context, that is in the verses they are reading from. You should be able to understand and see what he is teaching is in the verses. If he is saying things that are not directly in the text, then listen careful to see what he is say. If the preacher says, "I use only the KJV and use no other helps" I would check out what he is saying. No preacher or person can unto himself know the Word with out helps.

Charles

John MacArthur provides the following help to the question "How do I kill sin in my life? How do I do it?" Let me give you some little principles — very basic and straightforward.

If you live by the Spirit and are headed towards eternal life because of your salvation, the Spirit in you gives the power to be killing the deeds of the flesh.

The question is, "All right, how do I do that? I agree that the power is there, that’s the bent of my life, that’s the way I am going. I want to see the Spirit do more and more of it. How do I get to that point? How do I gain that victory? How do I establish that habitual pattern? What do I do?"

1. Recognize the Presence of Sin in Your Flesh.

Do you know why most Christians are most commonly defeated by sin? I believe it is because their sin has so totally deceived them, that they never really get to the point where they honestly evaluate its reality. They are not dealing with the issue.

They spend so much of their lives justifying their sin as a personality quirk or a product of their environment. They sugar-coat their habitual sins as simply idiosyncrasies (traits) of individuality, or some prenatal attraction that their mother had, or whatever. People can become so good at denying the reality of sin that they don’t see it. As a result, they don’t deal with it because they don’t even recognize it for what it is.

Any kind of spiritual victory begins by identifying the enemy. It is the same old story, "If you don’t know what you are shooting at, how are you going to hit it?" How am I going to eliminate from my life what I don’t even identify as needing to be eliminated?

Sin is not only wicked, it is deceitful. And it’s there inside each of us. Believe me it is there. John Owen was right, he says of sin:

• It has no doors to open. It needs no engine by which to work. It lies in the mind and in the understanding. It is found in the will. It is in the inclinations of the affections. It has such intimacy in the soul.

It’s there! But inevitably it’s covered up. As the Psalmist prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me" (Psalm 139:22). We must ask God to help us see our sinfulness, if we want to recognize it for what it is.

Don’t be deceived about how good you are. Believe me, your sin is there, and it is wretched and it spurts forth between the cracks of your supposed righteousness. It comes out in anger and bitter words, unkind thoughts, criticisms, self-conceit, lack of understanding, impatience, weak prayers, immoral thoughts, and even overt sins. You need to know your weaknesses.

Haggai the prophet, in chapter one of his prophecy, repeats the command, "Consider your ways! Consider your ways!" (vv. 5, 7). In other words, take a good deep look at yourself. First Kings 8:38 says, "Know the plague in your own heart.""And Paul in Ephesians 4:22 talks about deceitful lusts. From these and many other passages, the Bible makes the point: If you want to kill sin in your life, you must begin by examining your own heart to see the reality of what is there.

Continue next time

DR. JAMES KENNEDY AN INFLUENCE IN MY LIFE

Let me take an opportunity to express our profound sadness at the news that D. James Kennedy died on Wednesay Our mourning is mingled with gladness and gratitude for the continuing influence of Dr. Kennedy’s life and teaching, for the privilege of having known him and learned from him, and for the assurance that he is in the presence of Christ even now, worshiping his Savior and enjoying the glories of heaven. The church of Christ worldwide will feel the loss of his leadership. So we stand in quiet sorrow alongside Dr. Kennedy’s family and the people of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, and we pray for God’s comforting grace.

We remember Dr. Kennedy with deep gratitude for his clear voice, for his courage in the defense of truth, and for his relentless energy. But we remember him most fondly for his work in the ministry of evangelism. Dr. Kennedy was remarkably effective in training people how to present the gospel clearly and persuasively. He was therefore uniquely blessed as the human instrument though which countless souls have heard the gospel and multitudes of Christians have been trained to share it with others. The rippling effects of that ministry will surely extend beyond anything Dr. Kennedy himself could ever have imagined. Christ taught us that all heaven rejoices whenever one soul repents. Jim Kennedy’s earthly work must have contributed immeasurably to heaven’s joy, and I have every confidence that as he entered into that joy this morning, he heard the Master’s words: “Well Done.”

We never personally meet Dr. Kennedy, but we listen to him on TV for many years.

God gives us seventy years and then we might be called home. Dr. Kennedy used his years faithfully for the Lord.

We losted Dr. Falwell in May, who also used his life for the Lord. Two great servents used by Christ to bring many to Himself.

We need to learn we are the clay, and to be used as the Lord directs our life.

Al Mohler had a good article about Dr. Kennedy on his blog.

Direct TV 378 NRB had a good program about Dr. Kennedy

David Wells's Vision: For the Church to Be the Church
In his book God in the Wasteland (pp. 214-215) David Wells writes:

• I want the evangelical church to be the church. I want it to embody a vibrant spirituality. I want the church to be an alternative to post-modern culture, not a mere echo of it. I want a church that is bold to be different and unafraid to be faithful . . a church that reflects an integral and undiminished confidence in the power of God’s Word, a church that can find in the midst of our present cultural breakdown the opportunity to be God’’s people in a world that has abandoned God. To be the church in this way, it is also going to have to find in the coming generation, leaders who exemplify this hope for its future and who will devote themselves to seeing it realized. To lead the church in the way that it needs to be led, they will have to rise above the internal politics of the evangelical world and refuse to accept the status quo where that no longer serves the vital interest of the kingdom of God. They will have to decline to spend themselves in the building of their own private kingdoms and refuse to be intimidated into giving the church less and other than what it needs. Instead, they will have to begin to build afresh, in cogently biblical ways, among the decaying structures that now clutter the evangelical landscape. To succeed, they will have to be people of large vision, people of courage, people who have learned again what it means to live by the Word of God, and, most importantly, what it means to live before the Holy God of that Word.

An Appeal for Biblical Accuracy in Child Evangelism

• My son Eric was visiting us Sunday with his wife Leslie and their little dog. We had a talk about this very subject about salvation and inviting Christ in to your heart at such an early age. Eric said, "Dad that is what I did." And I said, "I did the same thing as well." Well were we saved? My answer to both of us was "yes." Salvation is a process in which Christ continues to produce in us unto perfection in us.

Let me finish this article today with this point:

Becoming a Christian is much like joining an army. It costs nothing to join but the good soldier is willing to obey and even lay down his life for the general. When somebody does join the army, their life is no longer their own. When somebody joins the army, they surrender their rights to their leader. That's what God expects of us. Look at what Jesus said about becoming a Christian (follower of Christ):

Matthew 16:24-25, "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."

In order to become a Christian your will must be broken because it is naturally at war with God! In fact, the Bible says that our condition is pretty miserable, for we are born into this world:

1. An enemy of God —— our will is against His will (Rom. 5:10)2. Dead in sins (unable to anything that pleases God —— Eph. 2:1)3. Held captive by a foreign power greater than ourselves (Eph. 2:2)4. A child of wrath (someone destined for eternal judgment —— Eph. 2:3)

Have you ever seen a football game? There are two teams, each with different wills. One team desperately wants to run one way, and the other team wants to go the other way. They have opposing wills. We are born with a will that wants to do anything except turn from our sin and trust Christ for forgiveness! That's why becoming a Christian is primarily a surrender of your will!

This is an excellent example of communicating to children the truth about salvation. I truly believe that if we are more careful and clear in communicating these truths to the minds of children, we will be able to avoid long periods of time in people’s lives when they aren’t sure of their salvation or have to keep making professions of faith to be sure. Now, I do think it’’s important that if a child wants to express faith in Christ, we should encourage it—each and every time that desire occurs. At some point along the way, true faith will likely be expressed and assurance will come. We cannot see their hearts and must not put any stumbling blocks in their spiritual journey.

Ironically, four years before penning Into My Heart, Harry Clarke had written the music to another song entitled "What Must I Do?" I like the message of this song much better:

"What must I do?" the trembling jailer cried,When dazed by fear and wonder;"Believe in Christ!" was all that Paul replied,"And you shall be saved from sin."

• REFRAIN:Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,And you shall be saved!
  
• What must I do! O weary, trembling, soul,Just turn today to Jesus;He will receive, forgive and make you whole;Christ alone can set you free.
  
• His blood is all your plea for saving grace,The precious fount of cleansing!O come, accept His love, behold His face,And be saved forevermore.

"Ask Jesus into your heart."

On the August 8, 2007 edition of The Albert Mohler Program, a called asked Dr. Mohler: "Could you inform me where the term ‘ask Jesus into your heart’ came from and is it the proper way to be converted?"

The following is an edited transcript of Dr. Mohler’ helpful response:

The phrase "Ask jesus into your heart" comes out of the emotionalism of Revivalism. Revivalism is a very important movement. I came out of churches very much affected by revivalism. There is much to be thankful for there; there is also much to be concerned about there in terms of their understanding of conversion as something that is more emotionally driven than is described in the Scripture in terms of the faith that justifies. The faith that justifies, the faith that saves is a faith that means trusting Christ and his promises and receiving the promises of salvation.

Let me tell you the danger in the phrase "ask Jesus into your heart." Is it heresy? Absolutely not. It’s not heresy. It’s not a false way of describing the gospel. It does, for instance, on the positive side get to the fact that the heart must be involved. In other words, saving faith is demonstrated in the individual’s life coming to Christ when they do believe, and there is a decision made within the heart to believe. There is a yielding to Christ, a trusting that is a decision of the heart.

Of course, the big question is where does that decision come from? How does the heart become ready for that positive response, that trusting response to Christ? "Ask Jesus into your heart" is wrapped up in evangelical sentimentality. It’s not wrong. But it is not the best way of describing salvation.

The phrase comes back to a misuse of a biblical text in Revelation. "Behold I stand at the door and knock.""Is Jesus standing ready for all those who respond to him in faith? Absolutely. But he’s not just waiting and watching. The New Testament picture of Jesus, the biblical portrait of God is not just of a god who waits and watches but rather of a God who saves.

Is the heart involved? Absolutely. It’s emotional language. And we’re an emotional people. Especially in a movement like revivalism that became very adept at reaching people on an emotional level, it’s not wrong; it’s just not as right as it could be. It’s not wrong when someone says, "I became a Christian when I asked Jesus into my heart." It’s not wrong. But you need to make sure they really understand what they’re doing there.

[Salvation is] not just saying yes to a relationship. That is the sad and minimal part of this that people don’t understand. It’s trusting Christ and his promises. You know in the New Testament, there is this whole idea of fiducia, faith –– I love the way the Puritans put it when they said: "it is finally resting in Christ." So it’s more that we are in Him than that He is in us. Of course, he does dwell within us. But it’s not as if we are the host and he is our guest. He is the Lord and we acknowledge him as our Savior.

An Appeal for Biblical Accuracy in Child Evangelism
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus

part 2

CONCERN #3: IT EASILY CONFUSES CHILDREN.

Easy-believism angers me. Careless Bible study frustrates me. But taking the most important message in the entire world and making it confusing for little ones both angers and frustrates me.

Bob Wilkin in his book Don’t Ask testifies of the confusion this inaccuracy has wrought among children when he writes,

I had my students write out their testimonies after I had explained what I have recounted above. I found that quite a few of the students went through years of confusion because someone told them as children that if they asked Jesus into their hearts they would be saved.

They wondered if they had done it right. They wondered if they had been sincere enough. So they asked Him in over and over again for years. They couldn’t gain assurance. Finally someone shared with them that to be saved they had to trust in Christ alone. Only then, by their own testimony, did they come to faith in Christ. Years of inviting Him into their lives had only confused and frustrated them.

Consider as well this personal testimony from Dr. John MacArthur:

• And every time, as a little kid, that somebody said, "Ask Jesus in your heart," I can remember saying, "Jesus, please come in my heart." I can remember that over and over: "In case you’re not there, please come in today." You know? I mean, I did that as a kid. I’d go to camp, the guy would give a message, and just to be sure, you know, I’d say, "Lord, if you’re not in my life, please……"

Then, of course, there is the problem that children are not generally able to think in the abstract until about age seven. So, we should not be surprised when children take "asking Jesus into their heart" in a literal way. We must be absolutely clear when dealing with children about their eternal souls. Remember, the Bible tells us that child-like faith is essential, but it does not say the same about child-like intellect. While many children are saved at a young age, they must understand the essential truths of salvation in order to properly direct that precious faith in trusting Christ.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Making sure children learn the doctrine of God’s Word. Allow me to condense his article to just the main points.

1. God wants you to honor and serve Him.

2. Your sin (breaking God's rules) keeps you from pleasing God.

3. Sin is paid for by death and separation from God.

4. You cannot get to heaven by being good or doing lots of good works.

5. Here's the best part. Christ paid for your sins.

6. Accept Christ's payment for your sin.

7. Turn from your sin. Want something completely different than your sin.

8. God has made you a promise––eternal life.

Becoming a Christian is much like joining an army. It costs nothing to join but the good soldier is willing to obey and even lay down his life for the general. When somebody does join the army, their life is no longer their own. When somebody joins the army, they surrender their rights to their leader. That's what God expects of us. Look at what Jesus said about becoming a Christian (follower of Christ):

will finish on Sunday