Western culture as a whole, and the United States in particular, has had a tremendous amount of light from God, and experienced many blessings from His hand. Yet, this culture seems intent upon continuing on its path to self-destruction. A few thoughts from the Christian worldview (while we are still allowed, we would hope, to express them).
Christian Praise and Worship in Songs, Sermons, and Audio Books (my YouTube channel)
A large video collection (over 3,200 videos as of Dec 28, 2012) of classic hymns, Praise and Worship songs, and the works (audio books, devotional readings, and sermons) of men greatly used of God, such as: Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, A.W. Tozer, A.W. Pink, John Owen, Oswald Chambers, Andrew Murray, John MacArthur, E.M. Bounds, John Bunyan, George Whitefield, and many more, covering topics on many aspects of the Christian life. May your time spent here be blessed. http://www.youtube.com/user/stack45ny
My new original song. If you have a YouTube account, and find the song a blessing, please consider clicking “Like,” for doing so will help my video rank higher in search engines and therefore reach more people. Saving the video to your favorites and playlists is also helpful…thank you. http://youtu.be/5G7QRG4gy58
Charles Spurgeon – The Most Healthy State of a Christian
Psalm 70:5
New International Version (NIV)
5 But as for me, I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay.
Psalm 144:2 He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.
C.H. Spurgeon Sermon – Anxiety, Ambition, Indecision, Children of God, Be Not Anxious or Ambitious
Charles Spurgeon Sermons Playlist 2: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAFB98CCADC2677AF
Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ChristianDevotionalReadings
http://www.sermonaudio.com/main.asp
Luke 12:29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.
Psalm 103:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 January 31, 1892) was a British Reformed Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the “Prince of Preachers.” In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times a week at different places. His sermons have been translated into many languages. Spurgeon was the pastor of the New Park Street Chapel in London for 38 years. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon’s which now works globally. He also founded Spurgeon’s College, which was named after him after his death.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works including sermons, an autobiography, a commentary, books on prayer, a devotional, a magazine, and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime. Arguably, no other author, Christian or otherwise, has more material in print than C.H. Spurgeon.
John Bunyan – The Heavenly Footman / A Description of the Man That Gets to Heaven, How to Run
1 Corinthians 9:24
King James Version (KJV)
24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
John Bunyan playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…
John Bunyan (1628-1688), Puritan author, had very little schooling. He followed his father in the tinker’s trade, and he served in the parliamentary army from1644 to 1647. Bunyan married in 1649 and lived in Elstow until 1655, when his wife died. He then moved to Bedford, and married again in 1659. John Bunyan was received into the Baptist church in Bedford by immersion in 1653.
In 1655, he became a deacon and began preaching, with marked success from the start. In 1658 he was indicted for preaching without a license. The authorities were fairly tolerant of him for a while, and he did not suffer imprisonment until November of 1660, when he was taken to the county jail in Silver Street, Bedford, and there confined (with the exception of a few weeks in 1666) for 12 years until January 1672. He afterward became pastor of the Bedford church. In March of 1675 he was again imprisoned for preaching publicly without a license, this time being held in the Bedford town jail. In just six months this time he was freed, (no doubt the authorities were growing weary of providing Bunyan with free shelter and food) and he was not bothered again by the authorities.
He wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress in two parts, of which the first appeared at London in 1678,which he had begun during his imprisonment in 1676. The second part appeared in 1684. The earliest edition in which the two parts were combined in one volume came out in 1728. A third part falsely attributed to Bunyan appeared in 1693. The Pilgrim’s Progress is the most successful allegory ever written, and like the Bible has been extensively translated into other languages.
He wrote many other books, including one which discussed his inner life and reveals his preparation for his appointed work is Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666). He became a popular preacher as well as a very voluminous author, though most of his works consist of expanded sermons. In theology he was a Puritan, but not a partisan. He was no scholar, except of the English Bible, but that he knew thoroughly. He also drew much influence from Martin Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.
Some time before his final release from prison he became involved in a controversy with two theologians of his day: Kiffin and Paul. In 1673 he published his Differences in Judgement about Water-Baptism no Bar to Communion, in which he took the ground that “the Church of Christ hath not warrant to keep out of the communion the Christian that is discovered to be a visible saint of the word, the Christian that walketh according to his own light with God.” While he agreed as a Baptist that water baptism was God’s ordinance, he refused to make “an idol of it,” and he disagreed with those who would dis-fellowship from Christians who did not adhere to water baptism
Kiffin and Paul published a rejoinder in Serious Reflections (London, 1673), in which they set forth the argument in favor of the restriction of the Lord’s Supper to baptized believers. The controversy resulted in the Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists leaving the question of communion with the unbaptized open. Bunyan’s church permitted pedobaptists (those who baptize children, such as the Calvinistic Presbyterian Church) to fellowship and eventually, Bunyans church even became a pedobaptist church.
On a trip to London, he caught a severe cold, and he died at the house of a friend at Snow Hill on August 31, 1688. His grave lies in the cemetery at Bunhill Fields in London.
Let me listen, daily, hourly, to the divine admonition–“Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” How many venture to walk–but it is to walk dangerously near the precipice straying on doubtful or forbidden ground; with a faltering will; holding parley with sin; tampering with the sensitiveness of conscience and with the treacherous allurements and base compliances of the world; thus “grieving the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
Lord, bring me to live more and more constantly under the sovereignty of that lofty motive to walk and act so as to please You; to exercise a jealous scrutiny over my truant, treacherous, deceitful heart. Specially in my daily business and daily duties and daily temptations and daily perplexities, may I seek to be led by Your Spirit. Let me keep free of whatever influences would deflect the needle from its pole, and prevent the love of God from being shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit given unto me. Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, may I be changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Lord the Spirit (2 Cor. 3;18). Free from the bondage of the law–the law of sin and death, let me become a willing slave to the new bondage of Christ’s service. Recognizing the ultimate end of Redemption to be Sanctification, may I yield myself and my members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Rom. 6;19).
– John MacDuff
From PAUL’S SONG OF SONGS
A devotional exposition of Romans 8
John Calvin Sermon – Suffering Outside the Camp, Separation & Suffering for Christ
2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
Hebrews 13:13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
J.C. Ryle playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…
Hebrews 13:8
King James Version (KJV)
8Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
My “Christian Devotional Readings” page: https://www.facebook.com/ChristianDevotionalReadings?ref=tn_tnmn
John Ryle had his beginnings at Oxford, where he was an athlete and first class student of the Greats. He was headed for a career in politics, but then was called to the ministry. This work is a study of holiness, or Christian perfection. Ryle works to debunk many of the popular beliefs of his day concerning holiness. Reviewers praise his balance of honest, tough-love messages and compassionate, pastoral care. An intense but readable book, Holiness has been inspiration for living a Christian life for over a century. Believers looking for instructions on how to improve their lifestyle and continue the process of sanctification will value this book, which discusses grace, God’s love, and, of course, holiness.
(This volume is considered the best book on
the Christian life that has EVER been written.)
Chapters on:
Sin
Sanctification
Holiness
The Fight
The Cost
Growth
Assurance
Moses—An Example
Lot—A Beacon
A Woman to Be Remembered
Christ’s Greatest Trophy
The Ruler of the Waves
The Church Which Christ Builds
Visible Churches Warned
Do you love Me?
Without Christ
Thirst Relieved
Unsearchable Riches
Needs of the Times
Christ is All
“From his conversion [in 1837] to his burial [in 1900], J.C. Ryle was entirely one-dimensional. He was a one-book man; he was steeped in Scripture; he bled the Bible. As only Ryle could say, ‘It is still the first book which fits the child’s mind when he begins to learn religion, and the last to which the old man clings as he leaves the world.’
“This is WHY his works have lasted—and will last—they bear the stamp of eternity. Today, more than a hundred years after his passing, Ryle’s works stand at the crossroads between the historic faith and modern evangelicalism. Like signposts, they direct us to the ‘old paths.’ And, like signposts, they are meant to be read.”
“He [J.C. Ryle] was great through the abounding grace of God. He was great in stature; great in mental power; great in spirituality; great as a preacher and expositor of God’s most holy Word; great in hospitality; great as a writer of Gospel tracts; great as a Bishop of the Reformed Evangelical Protestant Church in England, of which he was a noble defender; great as first Bishop of Liverpool. I am bold to say, that perhaps few men in the nineteenth century did as much for God, for truth, and for righteousness, among the English speaking race, and in the world, as our late Bishop.”
~ Rev. Richard Hobson, three days after Ryle’s burial in 1900.
J.C. Ryle – The Unchanging Christ
Matthew Henry – And then shall many be Offended, and shall Betray one Another, and shall Hate one Another
“And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” (Mat 24:10)
The malignity of others. When persecution is in fashion, envy, enmity, and malice, are strangely diffused into the minds of men by contagion: and charity, tenderness, and moderation, are looked upon as singularities, which make a man like a speckled bird. Then they shall betray one another, that is,”Those that have treacherously deserted their religion, shall hate and betray those who adhere to it, for whom they have pretended friendship.’’ Apostates have commonly been the most bitter and violent persecutors. Note, Persecuting times are discovering times. Wolves in sheep’s clothing will then throw off their disguise, and appear wolves: they shall betray one another, and hate one another. The times must needs be perilous, when treachery and hatred, two of the worst things that can be, because directly contrary to two of the best (truth and love), shall have the ascendant.
– Matthew Henry
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