Afflicted Saint, to Christ Draw Near. This hymn is a new edition to our songbook and we’ve yet to sing it together. I included it in last Sunday’s at home worship guide but forgot to point you to this video so you could hear the tune.
6 Questions about Christ’s Heart for Sinners by Dane Ortlund. “Is God mad at me for my sin? Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistances to Christ’s love. Even when we run out of tangible reasons to be cast out, such as specific sins or failures, we tend to retain a vague sense that, given enough time, Jesus will finally grow tired of us and hold us at arm’s length.
We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off his heart to his own sheep. No such reason exists. Every human friend has a limit. If we offend enough, if a relationship gets damaged enough, if we betray enough times, we are cast out. The walls go up. With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resumé items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required—first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until we are with him upon death.”
An Orthodox Catechism by Hercules Collins. Collins was a 17th century Particular Baptist (calvinistic baptist) pastor and theologian. (By the way, our church is a theological descendent of the 17th century Particular Baptist movement.) Collins pastored London’s oldest Baptist church for twenty-six years (1676–1702). As a nonconformist minister he was jailed in 1684 (prior to the Act of Toleration issued in 1689). An Orthodox Catechism (1680) was his first published work. It’s an edited version of the 16th century Reformed Heidelberg Catechism, which I have referenced several times here. Collins revised the sections on baptism to align with Baptist doctrine, made various stylistic changes, and included the Nicene and Athanasian creeds to demonstrate the Particular Baptists’ theological continuity with historic Christianity (adapted from herculescollins.com).
Consider question 26 from the catechism (it’s related to the questions and answers from the Heidelberg Catechism I highlighted last week):
Q. What do you believe when you say, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth”?
A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence, is my God and Father because of Christ his Son. I trust him so much that I do not doubt he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because he is almighty God; he desires to do this because he is a faithful Father (italics added).
Don’t miss that last line; it’s precious.
Westminster Seminary California on iTunes U. Listen to full courses by Robert B. Strimple, Edmund Clowney, J.I. Packer, and Hywel Jones. I’m looking forward to listening to Hywel Jones’s series of Morning Devotions on Psalm 119. Dr. Jones has preached at GBC several times. You can listen to his sermons here.
Imago Dei, Human Dignity, and the Present Crisis (video) by W. Robert Godfrey (former President of Westminster Seminary California). “Christians have a message of dignity and hope to give to a watching world in times of crisis. In this conversation with Ligonier’s President, Chris Larson, Dr. W. Robert Godfrey discusses the lessons we can learn from Scripture and church history as we seek to honor the Lord in troubling times.”