Christopher Love – Zealous Christian Holding Communion With God, in Wrestling and Importunate Prayer

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Rich Moore

Christopher Love – Zealous Christian Holding Communion With God, in Wrestling and Importunate Prayer

Christopher Love was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1618. He was admitted to New Inn Hall, Oxford, in 1635, and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1639. He met Mary Stone, the daughter of a London merchant; he married her, and the Loves had five children: two girls who died early in life, and three boys. The last son was born thirteen days after Love’s death.

Love was finally ordained as a Presbyterian in 1645, at St. Mary’s Aldermanbury, London, which enabled him to work as a pastor at St. Ann and St. Agnes, Aldersgate. After preaching there for three years, Love became minister of St. Lawrence Jewry (about 600 feet from St. Ann’s). He earned a great reputation for his eloquence and vigor in preaching, though he continued to offend Independents.

Love was arrested on May 14, 1652, by Oliver Cromwell’s forces for alleged involvement with the Presbyterians of Scotland who were raising money for the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. Love denied the charge, but he was tried and convicted of treason for what has become known as “Love’s plot.” Love’s wife and numerous friends, including several prominent ministers in London, interceded on his behalf, but to no avail. Ardent republican Independents were determined to destroy him. Love was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, on August 22, 1651, at the age of thirtythree. Presbyterians were divided on the issue. Some were incensed, and regarded Love as a heroic martyr. Others were less sympathetic to Love’s cause. In the end, the Scots and some English, like Love, were badly deceived by Charles II’s supposed adherence to the “Covenant.” Even Thomas Watson, who was involved with Love in the plot to some degree, later had second thoughts about the affair.

In a moving address from the scaffold, Love answered the charges made against him and urged citizens of London to heed and love their godly ministers. Sheriff Tichburn granted him permission to pray. He prayed:

Most Glorious and eternal Majesty, Thou art righteous and holy in all Thou dost to the sons of men, though Thou hast suffered men to condemn Thy servant, Thy servant will not condemn Thee. He justifies Thee though Thou cuttest him off in the midst of his days and in the midst of his ministry, blessing Thy glorious name, that though he be taken away from the land of the living, yet he is not blotted out of the Book of the Living….

O Thou blessed God, whom Thy creature hath served, who hath made Thee his hope and his confidence from his youth, forsake him not now while he is drawing near to Thee. Now he is in the valley of the shadow of death; Lord, be Thou life to him. Smile Thou upon him while men frown upon him. Lord, Thou hast settled this persuasion in his heart that as soon as ever the blow is given to divide his head from his body he shall be united to his Head in heaven. Blessed be God that Thy servant dies in these hopes.

We entreat Thee, O Lord, think upon Thy poor churches. O that England might live in Thy sight! And O that London might be a faithful city to Thee! That righteousness might be among them, that peace and plenty might be within her walls and prosperity within their habitations. Lord, heal the breaches of these nations; make England and Scotland as one staff in the Lord’s hand, that Ephraim may not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim, but that both may fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines. O that men of the Protestant religion, engaged in the same cause and covenant, might not delight to spill each other’s blood, but might engage against the common adversaries of our religion and liberty! God, show mercy to all that fear Thee. The Lord think upon our covenant-keeping brethren of the Kingdom of Scotland; keep them faithful to Thee, and let not them that have invaded them overspread their whole land. Prevent the shedding of more Christian blood if it seems good in Thine eyes….

After the public prayer, Love thanked the sheriff, and said, “I go from a block to the bosom of my Savior.” Love called for the executioner and tipped him to encourage a beheading with one blow. He fell on his knees and said, “I lie down with a world of comfort as if I were to lie down in my bed. My bed is but a short sleep, and this death is a long sleep where I shall rest in Abraham’s bosom and in the embraces of the Lord Jesus.” His last words, just before he put his head on the
block, were, “Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.”

Thomas Manton, preached at Love’s funeral to a huge audience. Love’s wife wrote 140 pages of memoirs about her husband. “His family looked upon him as a Moses for meekness and a Job for patience,” she wrote. “He lived too much in heaven to live long out of heaven.”

Luke 11:8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.

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Richard Sibbes – The Bruised Reed: The Reed and the Bruising (Forward / Ch 1 of 16)

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Rich Moore

Richard Sibbes – The Bruised Reed: The Reed and the Bruising (Forward / Ch 1 of 16)

Richard Sibbes Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL45BC2AAC7888484A

Isaiah 42

1Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

2He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

3A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

Richard Sibbes – The Bruised Reed: The Reed and the Bruising (Forward / Ch 1 of 16)

Richard Sibbes was born in 1577 at Tostock, Suffolk, in the Puritan county of old England. He was baptized in the parish church in Thurston, and went to school there. As a child, he loved books. His father, Paul Sibbes, a hardworking wheelwright and, according to Zachary Catlin, a contemporary biographer of Sibbes, was “a good, sound-hearted Christian,” but became irritated with his son’s interest in books. He tried to cure his son of book-buying by offering him wheelwright tools, but the boy was not dissuaded. With the support of others, Sibbes was admitted to St. John’s College in Cambridge at the age of eighteen. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1599, a fellowship in 1601, and a Master of Arts degree in 1602. In 1603, he was converted under the preaching of Paul Baynes, whom Sibbes called his “father in the gospel.” Baynes, remembered most for his commentary on Ephesians, succeeded William Perkins at the Church of St. Andrews in Cambridge.

Sibbes was ordained to the ministry in the Church of England in Norwich in 1608. He was chosen as one of the college preachers in 1609 and earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1610. From 1611 to 1616, he served as lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. His preaching awakened Cambridge from the spiritual indifference into which it had fallen after the death of Perkins. A gallery had to be built to accommodate visitors in the church.

Sibbes came to London in 1617 as a lecturer for Gray’s Inn, the largest of the four great Inns of Court, which still remains one of the most important centers in England for the study and practice of law. In 1626, he also became master of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Under his leadership, the college regained some of its former prestige. It graduated several men who would one day serve prominently at the Westminster Assembly: John Arrowsmith, William Spurstowe, and William Strong. Soon after his appointment, Sibbes received the Doctor of Divinity degree at Cambridge. He became known as “the heavenly Doctor,” due to his godly preaching and heavenly manner of life. Izaac Walton wrote of Sibbes: Of this blest man, let this just praise be given: Heaven was in him, before he was in heaven.

In 1633, King Charles I offered Sibbes the charge of Holy Trinity, Cambridge. Sibbes continued to serve as preacher at Gray’s Inn, master of St. Catharine’s Hall, and vicar of Holy Trinity until his death in 1635.

Sibbes never married, but he established an astonishing network of friendships that included godly ministers, noted lawyers, and parliamentary leaders of the early Stuart era. “Godly friends are walking sermons,” he said. He wrote at least thirteen introductions to the writings of his Puritan colleagues.

Sibbes was a gentle man who avoided the controversies of his day as much as possible. “Fractions breed fractions,” he insisted. His battles with Archbishop Laud, Roman Catholics, and Arminians were exceptions. He also remained close friends with many pastors and leaders who wanted more radical reform than he did for the Church of England.

Sibbes was an inspiration to many. He influenced Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, and Independency, the three dominant parties of the church in England at that time. He was a pastor of pastors, and lived a life of moderation. “Where most holiness is, there is most moderation, where it may be without prejudice of piety to God and the good of others,” he wrote.

Sibbes wrote, “To preach is to woo…. The main scope of all [preaching] is, to allure us to the entertainment of Christ’s mild, safe, wise, victorious government.”

Sibbes’s last sermons, preached a week before his death, were on John 14:2, “In my Father’s house are many mansions…. I go to prepare a place for you.” When asked in his final days how his soul was faring, Sibbes replied, “I should do God much wrong if I should not say, very well.” Sibbes began his will and testament, dictated on July 4, 1635, the day before his death, with “I commend and bequeath my soul into the hands of my gracious Savior, who hath redeemed it with his most precious blood, and appears now in heaven to receive it.” William Gouge preached Sibbes’s funeral sermon. (Excerpt from Meet the Puritans by Dr. Joel Beeke and Randall J. Pederson).

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James Smith – This is the True Grace of God

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Rich Moore

James Smith – This is the True Grace of God

James Smith playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=096D74E48C1F1243

Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Devotional-Readings/196846270398160?ref=hl

A Treasury of Ageless,
Sovereign Grace,
Devotional Writings http://www.gracegems.org/

1 Peter 5:12

New International Version (NIV)

12 With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.

James Smith was a predecessor of Charles Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel in London from 1841 until 1850. Early on, Smith’s readings were even more popular than Spurgeon’s!

The habit of laying up a text of Scripture in the morning, to be meditated upon while engaged in the business of this world through the day—is both profitable and delightful. It is as a refreshing draught to a weary traveler!

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A Whole Christ with a Whole Heart – Thomas Brooks

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Rich Moore

A Whole Christ with a Whole Heart – Thomas Brooks

Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Devotional-Readings/196846270398160?ref=hl

A Treasury of Ageless,
Sovereign Grace,
Devotional Writings http://www.gracegems.org/

Thomas Brooks play list: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BAF41AECFA38A4CE

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680), Nonconformist Puritan preacher and author.

Thomas Brooks was born in 1608. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1625, where such New England Puritans as Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, and Thomas Shepard were also educated, but he appears to have left before graduating. Brooks was ordained as a preacher of the gospel in 1640 and became a chaplain to the parliamentary fleet, serving for some years at sea. That ministry is mentioned in some of his “sea-devotions” as well as his statement: “I have been some years at sea and through grace I can say that I would not exchange my sea experiences for England’s riches.”

After the Civil War, Brooks became minister at the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, Queen Street, London (1648-1651). He was often called to preach before Parliament. In 1652, he became rector of St. Margaret’s, New Fish Street Hill, which was the first church that burned to the ground in the Great Fire of London (1666). Like Thomas Goodwin and John Owen, Brooks preferred the Congregational view of church government. In 1662, he fell victim to the notorious Act of Uniformity.

After being ejected from his living, Brooks continued to preach in London, where he apparently suffered little persecution. He became minister of a congregation at Moorfields, near St. Margaret’s. Unlike many ministers, he stayed in London during the Great Plague of 1665, faithfully tending his flock. In 1672, he was licensed to preach according to the terms of the Declaration of Indulgence, but that license was revoked in 1676.

Brooks lost his first wife, Martha Burgess, a godly woman whom he greatly treasured, in 1676. He wrote of her, “She was always best when she was most with God in a corner. She has many a whole day been pouring out her soul before God for the nation, for Zion, and the great concerns of her own soul.” He later married a young God-fearing woman named Patience Cartwright (Alexander Grosart puts it succinctly: “she spring-young, he winter-old” [Works of Brooks, 1:xxxv]), who proved a most worthy companion.

Brooks died in 1680 and was buried in Bunhill Fields, London’s famous nonconformist cemetery. John Reeve, who preached at the funeral, said Brooks had “a sweet nature, great gravity, large charity, wonderful patience, and strong faith.”

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https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=345407688875350&set=a.197113803704740.48878.196846270398160&type=1&theater

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Rich Moore

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=345407688875350&set=a.197113803704740.48878.196846270398160&type=1&theater

Do not even such things as are most bitter to the flesh, tend to awaken Christians to faith and prayer, to a sight of the emptiness of this world, and the fadingness of the best it yield? Doth not God by these things (ofttimes) call our sins to remembrance, and provoke us to amendment of life? How then can we be offended at things by which we reap so much good?…. Therefore if mine enemy hunger, let me feed him; if he thirst, let me give him drink.

Now in order to do this,

(1) We must see good in that, in which other men can see none. (2) We must pass by those injuries that other men would revenge. (2) We must show we have grace, and that we are made to bear what other men are not acquainted with. (4) Many of our graces are kept alive, by those very things that are the death of other men’s souls…. The devil, (they say) is good when he is pleased; but Christ and His saints, when displeased.

– John Bunyan

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A.W. Tozer Sermon Excerpt: The State of the Church and Coming Judgment

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Rich Moore

A.W. Tozer Sermon Excerpt: The State of the Church and Coming Judgment

A.W. Tozer sermon playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=66987CD6E419E258

Aiden Wilson Tozer was born April 21, 1897, on a small farm among the spiny ridges of Western Pennsylvania. Within a few short years, Tozer, as he preferred to be called, would earn the reputation and title of a “20th-century prophet.”
Able to express his thoughts in a simple but forceful manner, Tozer combined the power of God and the power of words to nourish hungry souls, pierce human hearts, and draw earthbound minds toward God.
When he was 15 years old, Tozer’s family moved to Akron, Ohio. One afternoon as he walked home from his job at Goodyear, he overheard a street preacher say, “If you don’t know how to be saved . . . just call on God.” When he got home, he climbed the narrow stairs to the attic where, heeding the preacher’s advice, Tozer was launched into a lifelong pursuit of God.
In 1919, without formal education, Tozer was called to pastor a small storefront church in Nutter Fort, West Virginia. That humble beginning thrust him and his new wife Ada Cecelia Pfautz, into a 44-year ministry with The Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Thirty-one of those years were spent at Chicago’s Southside Alliance Church. The congregation, captivated by Tozer’s preaching, grew from 80 to 800.
In 1950 Tozer was elected editor of the Alliance Weekly now called Alliance Life. The circulation doubled almost immediately. In the first editorial dated June 3, 1950, he set the tone: “It will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress. But it will pay in the long run and the true Christian is not much interested in anything short of that.”

Tozer’s forte was his prayer life which often found him walking the aisles of a sanctuary or lying face down on the floor. He noted, “As a man prays, so is he.” To him the worship of God was paramount in his life and ministry. “His preaching as well as his writings were but extensions of his prayer life,” comments Tozer biographer James L. Snyder. An earlier biographer noted, “He spent more time on his knees than at his desk.”
Tozer’s love for words also pervaded his family life. He quizzed his children on what they read and made up bedtime stories for them. “The thing I remember most about my father,” reflects his daughter Rebecca, “was those marvelous stories he would tell.”
Son Wendell, one of six boys born before the arrival of Rebecca, remembers that, “We all would rather be treated to the lilac switch by our mother than to have a talking-to by our dad.”
Tozer’s final years of ministry were spent at Avenue Road Church in Toronto, Canada. On May 12, 1963, his earthly pursuit of God ended when he died of a heart attack at age 66. In a small cemetery in Akron, Ohio, his tombstone bears this simple epitaph: “A Man of God.”
Some wonder why Tozer’s writings are as fresh today as when he was alive. It is because, as one friend commented, “He left the superficial, the obvious and the trivial for others to toss around. . . . [His] books reach deep into the heart.”
His humor, written and spoken, has been compared to that of Will Rogers–honest and homespun. Congregations could one moment be swept by gales of laughter and the next sit in a holy hush.
For almost 50 years, Tozer walked with God. Even though he is gone, he continues to speak, ministering to those who are eager to experience God. As someone put it, “This man makes you want to know and feel God.”

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Thomas Sherman – If this is Happiness, then Give me Misery

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Rich Moore

Thomas Sherman Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL879B7D7124BAA70A

Thomas Sherman – If this is Happiness, then Give me Misery

From ” ‘Aids to the Divine Life’
A Series of Practical Christian Contemplations’ ”

Luke 16:19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.

The Author’s Address to the Reader

To the reader,
As it should be our concern to get our judgments informed—so also our lives reformed; our heads filled with Gospel light—and our lives with Gospel holiness. We should hold fast and hold forth that which is good. Paul says of the Corinthians: “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3.) And of the Thessalonians: “The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.” (1 Thess. 1:8.)

The commendation of a Christian is to have truth written in his heart—and read in his life. Of the Romans says the same Apostle: “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you.” (Romans 6:17.) To have doctrine not only delivered to us, but to be delivered into that doctrine, so as to be framed and molded into the fashion of it—is what we should labor after. How far the following book tend to promote this work, I leave to be considered. But that our hearts may be so sanctified by truth, as that we may obey truth from the heart, is the prayer of your well-wisher,
Thomas Sherman, 1680

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James Smith – There is Divine Wisdom in every Trial, and Divine Love in every Cross

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Rich Moore

James Smith – There is Divine Wisdom in every Trial, and Divine Love in every Cross

James Smith playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=096D74E48C1F1243

Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Devotional-Readings/196846270398160?ref=hl

A Treasury of Ageless,
Sovereign Grace,
Devotional Writings http://www.gracegems.org/

Hebrews 12:7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

James Smith was a predecessor of Charles Spurgeon at New Park Street Chapel in London from 1841 until 1850. Early on, Smith’s readings were even more popular than Spurgeon’s!

The habit of laying up a text of Scripture in the morning, to be meditated upon while engaged in the business of this world through the day—is both profitable and delightful. It is as a refreshing draught to a weary traveler!

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The Sea of Damnation – William Dyer

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Rich Moore

The Sea of Damnation – William Dyer

William Dyer Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL991E5455A1A171AF

Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Devotional-Readings/196846270398160?ref=hl

A Treasury of Ageless,
Sovereign Grace,
Devotional Writings http://www.gracegems.org/

Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God

William Dyer (1632-1696) was a godly pastor in London, who was expelled from his church in the ‘Great Ejection’ of 1662. He is described as a man of great piety, and a serious fervent preacher.

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A.W. Pink – Is Man a Totally and Thoroughly Depraved Creature?: The Total Depravity of Man

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Rich Moore

A.W. Pink – Is Man a Totally and Thoroughly Depraved Creature?: The Total Depravity of Man

Psalm 51:5

King James Version (KJV)

5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Matthew 19:22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

A.W. Pink Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=10C95ED824AA4503

Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Devotional-Readings/196846270398160?ref=hl

Arthur Walkington Pink (1886-1952) evangelist and Biblical scholar

Pink was born in Nottingham, England on April 1, 1886 and became a Christian in his early 20’s. Though born to Christian parents, prior to conversion he migrated into a Theosophical society (an occult gnostic group popular in England during that time), and quickly rose in prominence within their ranks. His conversion came from his father’s patient admonitions from Scripture. It was the verse, Proverbs 14:12, ‘there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,’ which particularly struck his heart and compelled him to renounce Theosophy and follow Jesus.

Desiring to grow in knowledge of the Bible, Pink immigrated to the United States to study at Moody Bible Institute. In 1916 he married Vera E. Russell, who was from Kentucky. However, he left after just two months for Colorado, then California, then Britain. From 1925 to 1928 he served in Australia, including as pastor of two congregations from 1926 to 1928, when he returned to England, and to the United States the following year. He eventually pastored churches Colorado, California, Kentucky and South Carolina.

In 1922 he started a monthly magazine entitled Studies in Scriptures which circulated among English-speaking Christians worldwide, though only to a relatively small circulation list of around 1,000.

In 1934 Pink returned to England, and within a few years turned his Christian service to writing books and pamphlets. Pink died in Stornoway, Scotland on July 15, 1952. The cause of death was anemia.

After Pink’s death, his works were republished by the Banner of Truth Trust and reached a much wider audience as a result. Biographer Iain Murray observes of Pink, “the widespread circulation of his writings after his death made him one of the most influential evangelical authors in the second half of the twentieth century.” His writing sparked a revival of expository preaching and focused readers’ hearts on biblical living.

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