“Our justification means not only that our sins are forgiven and that we have been declared to be righteous by God Himself, not merely that we were righteous at the moment when we believed, but permanently righteous. For justification means this also, that we are given by God the positive righteousness of His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
– Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The Reason for Chastisement – John MacDuff
A Scottish Preacher (1818—1895)
“For sound doctrine, presented Scripturally
and devotionally, with its application to the
Christian life, you cannot go beyond MacDuff.”
“MacDuff writes popularly, yet he is by no
means shallow. For an hour’s pleasant and
holy reading, commend us to MacDuff!”
—Charles Spurgeon
Some known wolves in the Church: Harold Camping, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Joyce Meyer, Juanita Bynum, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Robert Schuller, Kenneth Copeland, Gloria Copeland, John Hagee, Jessie Duplantis, Kenneth Hagin, Frederick Price, Tony Alamo, Todd Bentley, Paula White, Joseph Prince, Creflo Dollar.
The Sheep’s Clothing will Soon be Stripped from the Wolf’s Back – William Secker
Secker, William (d. 1681?), Church of England clergyman and religious writer.
William Secker preached at Tewkesbury and afterwards at All-Hallows, London Wall. He may have been the William Secker who was appointed rector of Leigh, Essex, on 30 Aug. 1667, and died there before November 1681.
Secker’s sermon on ‘A Wedding Ring fit for the Finger, or the Salve of Divinity on the Sore of Humanity, laid open at a Wedding in St. Edmunds, London, 1658, 12mo, was very popular, and was often reprinted. It was translated into Welsh. Secker also dedicated to Sir Edward and Lady Frances Barkham of Tottenham, who had befriended him, a volume of sermons entitled ‘The Nonsuch Professor’ (London, 1660, 8vo). It was several times reprinted in America.
Christian Worship Praise Songs with Lyrics 2012 / Julie Bernstein – Out of the Deep (Psalm 130)
http://juliebernsteinmusic.com
Christian Praise and Worship Songs playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4D0533BC00E40EA4
Excerpt from Julie’s website:
Julie Bernstein’s story of music began in Illinois at a very early age. Her family’s house in the country sat on the corner of a crossroads, with the little country church she attended through childhood at one end. The crossroads between church and the opposite path would be a theme she’d revisit in her life many times.
As a child, she spent long afternoons laying in the fields watching the clouds and the sky, listening to nature’s orchestra of wind as it rustled through the trees. This love of sound led her to a musical kindergarten at age 6, and she studied with her first piano teacher all the way through high school.
It was clear that music was Julie’s path, as she learned so quickly she played through entire books instead of just the assignments for her piano lessons. This led to playing clarinet, oboe, flute, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, violin, bass clarinet… anything she could get her hands on. She would give “bedroom concerts” where all her instruments were laid out on her bed, and she would grab each one at the appropriate time while performing along with Mozart’s Requiem, all by ear. Just like the wind she loved to listen to, the music lifted her spirit and brought tears to her eyes because of the wonderful sounds she could create.
All this intense musical focus gave Julie a particular talent in sight reading, and her talents were recognized by teachers in 5th grade when she was called to substitute on piano at a choir rehearsal. This led to singing in choir, playing piano on every project thrown at her, and living in music 24 hours a day.
Julie auditioned and won a scholarship to college, where she studied music and was living her dream of a musical life. She found the perfect relationship, earned perfect grades, and was truly enjoying the creative atmosphere she had built around herself. But this “perfect life” everyone saw on the outside was quickly turning into something quite different.
Julie’s relationship had turned abusive, to the point that she tried to break it off but was forced to stay. She endured cycle after cycle of abuse followed by reassurance that it would never happen again. When she finally gathered up the strength to end the relationship for good, she ended up in the ER.
The emergency room was the beginning of Julie’s shutdown. After a prolonged absence, she returned to school and was determined to lose herself in music again. But depression set in, and she found herself slowly sinking instead of returning to the “perfect life” she had set out for herself. Desperate for help, she talked with her music professor, who took her for prayer with a pastor she had never met. This is where her heart and mind were opened to the reality of Jesus, and her heart became gripped with the desire to know Him. Something changed drastically on the inside of Julie during that meeting. Days later she attended a small church gathering with her professor and his wife. Her mind fought worship, but through their prayers in the moment, Julie finally let go. The Holy Spirit flooded her soul, and she was absolutely consumed… it was eternity breaking in, and she would never be the same.
John Flavel – The Mortification of Sin
John Flavel (1628-1691)
Excerpt from Meet the Puritans
by Dr. Joel Beeke and Randall J. Pederson
John Flavel (or Flavell) was born in 1628 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was the son of Richard Flavel, a minister who died of the plague in 1665 while in prison for nonconformity. John Flavel was educated by his father in the ways of religion, then “plied his studies hard” as a commoner at University College, Oxford. In 1650, he was ordained by the presbytery at Salisbury. He settled in Diptford, where he honed his numerous gifts.
He married Joan Randall, a godly woman, who died while giving birth to their first child in 1655. The baby died as well. After a year of mourning, Flavel married Elizabeth Stapell and was again blessed with a close, God-fearing marriage, as well as children.
In 1656, Flavel accepted a call to be minister in the thriving seaport of Dartmouth. He earned a smaller income there, but his work was more profitable; many were converted. One of his parishioners wrote of Flavel, “I could say much, though not enough of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable, and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of Scripture; his talking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience. In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected” (Erasmus Middleton, Evangelical Biography, 4:50-51).
Flavel was ejected from the pulpit in 1662 for nonconformity, but he continued to meet secretly with his parishioners in conventicles. On occasion, he would preach for them in the woods, especially on days of fasting and humiliation. Once he even disguised himself as a woman on horseback in order to reach a secret meeting place where he preached and administered baptism. At another time, when pursued by authorities, he plunged his horse into the sea and managed to escape arrest by swimming through a rocky area to reach Slapton Sands.
In 1672, King Charles II issued the Declaration of Indulgence, giving Nonconformists freedom to worship. Flavel returned to Dartmouth, licensed as a Congregationalist. When the indulgence was canceled the following year, Flavel once more resorted to preaching secretly in private homes, secluded neighborhoods, or remote forests. Flavel’s second wife died during this time and he married Ann Downe, a minister’s daughter. They were happily married for eleven years, and had two sons.
In the late 1670s and early 1680s, Flavel carried on his ministry mainly by writing. He published at least nine books in this period. In the summer of 1682, he was forced to seek safety in London, where he joined the congregation of his friend, William Jenkyn, known today for his commentary on Jude. In 1684, soldiers interrupted a prayer service Flavel was conducting with Jenkyn. Flavel narrowly escaped arrest. During his stay in London, Flavel’s third wife died. He married Dorothy, a widowed daughter of George Jefferies, minister of Kingsbridge; she survived him.
Flavel was humble, godly, and learned. He spent much time in study and prayer. One of his children wrote, “He was always full and copious in prayer, seemed constantly to exceed himself, and rarely made use twice of the same expressions.” He was well versed in church discipline, infant baptism, and a number of Oriental languages.
Flavel’s power as a preacher came out of his depth of spiritual experience. He spent many hours in meditation and self-examination. As Middleton writes, “He [Flavel] attained to a well-grounded assurance, the ravishing comforts of which were many times shed abroad in his soul; this made him a powerful and successful preacher, as one who spoke from his own heart to those of others. He preached what he felt, and what he had handled, what he had seen and tasted of the word of life and they felt it also” (ibid., p. 58).
While meditating on heaven on one occasion, Flavel was so overcome with heavenly joy that he lost sight of this world. Stopping his horse by a spring, he viewed death as the most amiable face he had ever seen, except that of Christ’s, who made it so. When he finally arrived at an inn, the innkeeper said to him, “Sir, what is the matter with you? You look like a dead man.” “Friend,” Flavel replied, “I was never better in my life.” Years later, Flavel said that he understood more of heaven from that experience than from all the books he had ever read and all the sermons he had ever heard on the subject.
John MacArthur playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=33B1A8B14A1E9962
Examples of women “teachers” today: Joyce Meyer, Juanita Bynum, Paula White, Marilyn Hickey, Monica Dennington, Beth Moore, Lisa Bevere, Mary Manin Morrissey, Gloria Copeland
Link to my “Christian Devotional Readings” Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christian-Devotional-Readings/196846270398160?ref=hl
1 Timothy 2:12-15 (New American Standard Bible)
12But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
13For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.
14And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
15But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.
George Whitefield – The Lord Our Righteousness (Part 1 of 5)
George Whitefield playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B21501082043149D
George Whitefield – (1714-1770), Methodist evangelist, was born on December 16, 1714, in Gloucester, England. The youngest of seven children, he was born in the Bell Inn where his father, Thomas, was a wine merchant and innkeeper. His father died when George was two and his widowed mother Elizabeth struggled to provide for her family. Because he thought he would never make much use of his education, at about age 15 George persuaded his mother to let him leave school and work in the inn. However, sitting up late at night, George became a diligent student of the Bible. A visit to his Mother by an Oxford student who worked his way through college encouraged George to pursue a university education. He returned to grammar school to finish his preparation to enter Oxford, losing only about one year of school.
In 1732 at age 17, George entered Pembroke College at Oxford. He was gradually drawn into a group called the “Holy Club” where he met John and Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley loaned him the book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. The reading of this book, after a long and painful struggle which even affected him physically, finally resulted in George’s conversion in 1735. He said many years later: “I know the place…. Whenever I go to Oxford, I cannot help running to the spot where Jesus Christ first revealed himself to me and gave me the new birth.”
Forced to leave school because of poor health, George returned home for nine months of recuperation. Far from idle, his activity attracted the attention of the bishop of Gloucester, who ordained Whitefield as a deacon, and later as a priest, in the Church of England. Whitefield finished his degree at Oxford and on June 20, 1736, Bishop Benson ordained him. The Bishop, placing his hands upon George’s head, resulted in George’s later declaration that “My heart was melted down and I offered my whole spirit, soul, and body to the service of God’s sanctuary.”
Whitefield was an astounding preacher from the beginning. Though he was slender in build, he stormed in the pulpit as if he were a giant. Within a year it was said that “his voice startled England like a trumpet blast.” At a time when London had a population of less than 700,000, he could hold spellbound 20,000 people at a time at Moorfields and Kennington Common. For thirty-four years his preaching resounded throughout England and America. In his preaching ministry he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times and became known as the ‘apostle of the British empire.’
He was a firm Calvinist in his theology yet unrivaled as an aggressive evangelist. Though a clergyman of the Church of England, he cooperated with and had a profound impact on people and churches of many traditions, including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. Whitefield, along with the Wesleys, inspired the movement that became known as the Methodists. Whitefield preached more than 18,000 sermons in his lifetime, an average of 500 a year or ten a week. Many of them were given over and over again. Fewer than 90 have survived in any form.
John Bunyan – Judgment and the Saints’ Reward
John Bunyan playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4B11CC7D2B75ABF2
1 Corinthians 3
8Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
9For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
10According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Acts 24
15And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.
John Bunyan – (1628-1688), Puritan author
John Bunyan 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, Bunyan 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. Bunyan 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.
John Bunyan 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.
John Bunyan 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). Bunyan 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 Bunyan 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, John Bunyan 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.
Oswald Chambers – The Battle for God and for His Truth
Oswald Chambers playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=10F140787559EB2B
Battle for God and for His Truth Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PLD1C61B3AD95C30CB
Oswald Chambers – The Battle for God and for His Truth
Revelation 19:10 “…For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Revelation 12:17 “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-1910 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
In 1910, Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen.
In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to troops from Australia and New Zealand as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.
Although Oswald Chambers wrote only one book, Baffled to Fight Better, more than thirty titles bear his name. With this one exception, published works were compiled by Mrs. Chambers, a court stenographer, from her verbatim shorthand notes of his messages taken during their seven years of marriage. For half a century following her husband’s death she labored to give his words to the world.
My Utmost For His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic.
Christian Sermons and Audio Books 
Treasury of David: Commentary on Psalm 1 – C.H. Spurgeon ( Audio Reading )
Treasury of David: Commentary on Psalms – C.H. Spurgeon playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=348048FBD9CF9258
Spurgeon Sermons playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CDB844A9113F938C
The Treasury of David is the most exhaustive commentary on the book of Psalms available, written by C. H. Spurgeon and commonly regarded as his magnum opus.
Treasury of David
Bible commentary on every verse in every chapter of Psalms.
Spurgeon’s expository comments help the reader in his understanding of Scripture.
Frequent “Explanatory notes and quaint sayings” offer helpful insights from many different Bible teachers throughout history on each Psalm.
“Hints to the village preacher” aid in preparing Bible studies and sermons.
The Treasury of David took Spurgeon 15 years to complete. It was originally published in installments, until finally made available in a seven volume set.
The complete unabridged work is part of the SwordSearcher Deluxe Bible Study Library, with commentary on any verse of the Psalms just a click away. As with any library resource in SwordSearcher, the entire text can be searched instantaneously for any word or phrase.
“The delightful study of the Psalms has yielded me boundless profit and ever-growing pleasure; common gratitude constrains me to communicate to others a portion of the benefit, with the prayer that it may induce them to search further for themselves.”
-C. H. Spurgeon, from the Preface.
C. H. Spurgeon – Baptist preacher
The descendant of several generations of Independent ministers, he was born at Kelvedon, Essex, and became a Baptist in 1850. In the same year he preached his first sermon, and in 1852 he was appointed paster of the Baptist congregation at Waterbeach. In 1854 he went to Southwark, where his sermons drew such crowds that a new church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Newington Causeway, had to be built for him. Apart from his preaching activites he founded a pastors’ college, an orphanage, and a colportage association for the propagation of uplifting literature. Spurgeon was a strong Calvinist. He had a controversy in 1864 with the Evangelical party of the Church of England for remaining in a Church that taught Baptismal Regeneration, and also estranged considerable sections of his own community by rigid opposition to the more liberal methods of Biblical exegesis. These differences led to a rupture with the Baptist Union in 1887. He owed his fame as a preacher to his great oratorical gifts, humour, and shrewd common sense, which showed itself especially in his treatment of contemporary problems. Among his works are The Saint and his Saviour (1857), Commenting and Commentaries (1876) and numerous volumes of sermons (translated into many languages).
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.
Treasury of David: Commentary on Psalm 1 – C.H. Spurgeon ( Audio Reading )
Share this: