Charles Colson February 22, 1999 from Breakpoint on Black History Month

Author: Charles Colson

Date: February 25, 1999

Source: Breakpoint

At New York's Shea Stadium, two years ago, baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced that number 42 would be retired by the major leagues forever. It was a mark of honor for the man who had worn that number-the man who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947:

Jackie Robinson.

February is Black History Month, and our kids have been hearing a lot about Robinson's quiet dignity in the face of racial bigotry on the ball field. But what many of them are not hearing is the source of Robinson's ability to turn the other cheek: It was his faith in Jesus Christ.

Robinson was born in 1919 into a culture steeped in racism. And from early childhood it drove Robinson mad. Historian Jackson Lears, writing in the New Republic, says Robinson had "a reputation as a mad brawler, always ready to smash in the teeth of any white man who insulted him." Later, at UCLA, he gained a reputation as a thug.

THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY

THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY

Copyright 1978, ICBI. All rights reserved. Published with permission from the
Dallas Theological Seminary Archives, Repository of ICBI Archives

 PREFACE
The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

Robert Frost - The Brain

" ROBERT FROST"

          THE BRAIN IS A WONDERFUL ORGAN,

          IT STARTS THE MINUTE YOU GET UP IN THE MORNING,

          AND DOES NOT STOP UNTIL YOU GET TO THE OFFICE.

                     "ROBERT FROST"   

Calvin and Hobb's - Its Hard to Know What's Important in Life

The Resonate Series Sampler IVP

An Introduction to the Resonate Series
“The last thing the world needs,” we hear every now and then from our readers, Is another commentary series.” 
They may have a point. The world has a seemingly limitless supply of commentaries on the sixty-six books of the Bible, and the nuances between them are often so fine that they could strain out a gnat.
So what, we are left to wonder, does the world need?

The Resonate Series Sampler IVP
Paul Louis Metzger

Irish Blessing

May the road rise to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back,

the sun shine warm upon your face, the rain fall soft upon your fields,

and until we meet again

may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

James O. Fraser on Praying for Missionaries

James O. Fraser on Praying for Missionaries

(Beyond The Range- by Mrs. Howard Taylor pg 57 & 58 

It seems to be a big responsibility to be the only preacher of the Gospel within a radius of about 150 miles. I feel my weakness very much, yet the Lord seems to delight in making His power perfect in weakness, May I ask you then to remember me specially in prayer, asking God to use me to the salvation of many precious souls.

I am feeling more and more that it is, after all, just the prayers of Gods people that call down blessing upon the work, whether they are directly engaged in it or not.

Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase; and this increase can be brought down from heaven by believing prayer, whether offered in China or in the homeland. We are, as it were, God’s agents – used by Him to do His work not ours. We do our part and then can only look to Him, with others, for His blessing.

If this is so, Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field. I believe it will be know only on the last day how much has been accomplished in missionary  work by the prayers of earnest believers at home. And this, surely, is the heart of the problem. Such work does not consist in curio tables, showing of slides, and the giving of reports. Good as this may be, they are only the fringe and not the root of the matter, solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees. What I count more than anything else is earnest, believing prayer, and I write to ask you to continue to put up much prayer for me and work here in Tengyueh.

An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity - Jonathan Edwards

An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html

JONATHAN EDWARDS

IT IS COMMON when speaking of the Divine happiness to say that God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of Himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, His own essence and perfection, and accordingly it must be supposed that God perpetually and eternally has a most perfect idea of Himself, as it were an exact image and representation of Himself ever before Him and in actual view, and from hence arises a most pure and perfect act or energy in the Godhead, which is the Divine love, complacence and joy. The knowledge or view which God has of Himself must necessarily be conceived to be something distinct from His mere direct existence. There must be something that answers to our reflection. The reflection as we reflect on our own minds carries something of imperfection in it. However, if God beholds Himself so as thence to have delight and joy in Himself He must become his own object. There must be a duplicity. There is God and the idea of God, if it be proper to call a conception of that that is purely spiritual an idea. 

Jim Elliot - Kingdom

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Rest in this - it is His business to lead, command, impel, send, call... It is your business to obey, follow, move, respond...

He makes His ministers a flame of fire. Am I ignitible? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul - short life? ... Make me thy fuel, Flame of God

Live every day as if the Son of Man were at the door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.

God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.

The will of God is always a bigger thing than we bargain for, but we must believe that whatever it involves, it is good, acceptable and perfect.

Our young men are going into the professional fields because they don't 'feel called' to the mission field. We don't need a call; we need a kick in the pants. We must begin thinking in terms of 'going out,' and stop our weeping because 'they won't come in.' Who wants to step into an igloo? The tombs themselves are not colder than the churches. May God send us forth.

God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.
Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness.

It makes me boil when I think of the power we profess and the utter impotency of our action. Believers who know one-tenth as much as we do are doing one-hundred times more for God, with His blessing and our criticism. Oh if I could write it, preach it, say it, paint it, anything at all, if only God's power would become known among us.

Always seek peace between your heart and God, but in this world, always be careful to remain ever-restless, never satisfied, and always abounding in the work of the Lord.

Lord, make my way prosperous not that I achieve high station, but that my life be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.

Forgive me for being so ordinary while claiming to know so extraordinary a God.

Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.

We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with.... Oh that God would make us dangerous!Jim Elliot

Wherever you are - be all there.

It's hard to steer a parked car.

Father, let me be weak that I might loose my clutch on everything temporal. My life, my reputation, my possessions, Lord, let me loose the tension of the grasping hand. Even, Father, would I lose the love of fondling. How often I have released a grasp only to retain what I prized by 'harmless' longing, the fondling touch. Rather, open my hand to received the nail of Calvary, as Christ's was opened- that I, releasing all, might be released, unleashed from all that binds me now. He thought Heaven, yea, equality with God, not a thing to be clutched at. So let me release my grasp.

Desire is the putting of my will into God’s concern. It’s not a passive, sitting back in your easy chair, folding your arms sort of thing, which says, 'Well, I’m willing, if God would only give me a good swift kick and send me.' That’s willingness all right. But God doesn’t want willingness, He wants will! He wants your will put behind those desires.

Children are arrows in a quiver, and they are to be trained as missionaries and shot at the Devil.

Father, take my life, yea, my blood if Thou wilt, and consume it with Thine enveloping fire. I would not save it, for it is not mine to save. Have it Lord, have it all. Pour out my life as an oblation for the world. Blood is only of value as it flows before Thine altar

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.

That saint who advances on his knees never retreats...

Why do you need a voice when you have a verse?

I have prayed for new men, fiery, reckless men, possessed of uncontrollably youthful passion-these lit by the Spirit of God. I have prayed for new words, explosive, direct, simple words. I have prayed for new miracles. Explaining old miracles will not do. If God is to be known as the God who does wonders in heaven and earth, then God must produce for this generation. Lord, fill preachers and preaching with Thy power. How long dare we go on without tears, without moral passions, hatred and love? Not long, I pray, Lord Jesus, not long.

St Patricks Breastplate

Christ Be with Me,

Christ within me,

Christ behind me,

Christ before me,

Christ besides me

Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ in Quiet,

Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all that love me,

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

St Patrick,

Ten Effects of Believing in the Five Points of Calvinism By John Piper(?)

Ten Effects of Believing in the Five Points of Calvinism

April 20, 2002

These ten points are my personal testimony to the effects of believing in the five points of Calvinism. I have just completed teaching a seminar on this topic and was asked by the class members to post these reflections so they could have access to them. I am happy to do so. They, of course, assume the content of the course, which is available on tape from Desiring God Ministries, but I will put them here for wider use in the hope that they might stir others to search, Berean-like, to see if the Bible teaches what I call "Calvinism."

praying for Missionaries. James O Frasier in Beyond the Range by Mrs Howard Taylor.

James O. Fraser on Praying for Missionaries

Beyond The Range- by Mrs. Howard Taylor pg 57 & 58

It seems to be a big responsibility to be the only preacher of the Gospel within a radius of about 150 miles. I feel my weakness very much, yet the Lord seems to delight in making His power perfect in weakness, May I ask you then to remember me specially in prayer, asking God to use me to the salvation of many precious souls.

I am feeling more and more that it is, after all, just the prayers of Gods people that call down blessing upon the work, whether they are directly engaged in it or not. 

Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase; and this increase can be brought down from heaven by believing prayer, whether offered in China or in the homeland. We are, as it were, God’s agents – used by Him to do His work not ours. We do our part and then can only look to Him, with others, for His blessing.

If this is so, Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field. I believe it will be know only on the last day how much has been accomplished in missionary  work by the prayers of earnest believers at home. And this, surely, is the heart of the problem. Such work does not consist in curio tables, showing of slides, and the giving of reports. Good as this may be, they are only the fringe and not the root of the matter, solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees. What I count more than anything else is earnest, believing prayer, and I write to ask you to continue to put up much prayer for me and work here in Tengyueh.

- OMF, James O Frasier,

The Tragic Failure of Britain’s Evangelical Awakening by Jonathan W. Rice International Journal of Frontier Missions 21:1 Spring 2004•23

Recently, I began reading a book so interesting that I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. finishing it. If you ever want a detailed account of how the nineteenth-century English Evangelicals ended the British slave trade; abolished sati and infant sacrifice in India; banned child labor and other such abuses in England; started the world’s first ‘animal rights’ group (The RSPCA, which banned the torture of animals for sport); rehabilitated prosti- tutes; reformed the Parliament; brought education and relief to the destitutes of England; brought about prison and lunatic asylum reforms, etc., then the book to read is “The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians,” by Ian C. Bradley (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1976).
Bradley tries to take the stance of an impartial historian. However, it becomes clear after a few chapters that the subjects of his study are steadily gaining
his admiration and empathy. In every chapter he critiques the excesses of the movement: their petty legalisms, repressive behavior codes (“The Cult of Conduct”), intellectual philistinism, and so forth. And yet, his approach is
fair and he always balances the negatives with their many positive contribu- tions. For the most part, the positives win out. A famous historian quoted in the book sums up the mixture: “Between 1780 and 1850 the English ceased
to be one of the most aggressive, brutal, rowdy, outspoken, riotous, cruel and bloodthirsty nations in the world and became one of the most inhibited, polite, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical” (p. 106).
The book, however, ends on a tragic note. Many of the Evangelicals lost their children and grandchildren to agnosticism or atheism. All throughout its pages, we see glimpses of English Evangelicalism’s serious weakness: anti- intellectualism. It comes out in the many accounts of their petty legalism and sometimes even pharisaic separatism; and how they terrorized their children with stories of juvenile Sabbath-breakers, who actually had a little fun on
a Sunday and then died and went to Hell for it; and how they forbade their members to read “secular” novels and discouraged them from patronizing “secular” art and music (Mozart and Beethoven were flat out!). Their intellec- tual weakness becomes more pronounced in their view of “practical” religion.

True Christianity, they believed, did not entail entering the marketplace of ideas. They did not think it worthwhile to intelligently engage the skeptics, German Biblical critics, agnostics and atheistic philosophers of their day. Instead, they claimed, God had called them to a purely practical faith: to send forth missionaries, to help the poor and downtrodden, to better peoples’ man- ners. These were the things pleasing
to God; not intellectual debate or true apologetics. In fact, a popular belief of theirs was that one could only prove the existence of God by looking deep within one’s own conscience (pietism at its worst!). When, by the mid-1800s, much of Evangelicalism became influ- enced by the rise of proto-fundamen- talist groups, any fading hope of a ‘life of the mind’ was dashed to pieces.
Which brings us to the tragic last chapter of Bradley’s book, the story
of the new generation: the children and grandchildren of these nine- teenth-century Evangelicals. While some of them kept the faith, “an alarmingly high number deserted the Evangelical fold” (p. 194). Some still remained Christians. For example, three of William Wilberforce’s sons became Roman Catholics and the fourth became a non-Evangelical Anglican. Thomas Macauley also forsook Evangelicalism, though he still considered himself Christian. The real tragedy is not in these cases, but
in the many others who abandoned
the Christian faith altogether. Bradley notes that, “Samuel Butler, George Eliot [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans], Leslie and James Fitzjames Stephen, and Francis Newman renounced Christianity altogether and became atheists” (p. 194). There are many others whom Bradley doesn’t mention. For example, what about Margaret Noble several years later, the Wesleyan pastor’s daughter, who as a child “loved Jesus very much” and wanted to be
a missionary when she grew up? As
an adult, she came under the spell of Swami Vivekananda, converted to Hinduism, changed her name to Sister Nivedita, and wrote praises to “Kali the Mother.” The list could go on and on.
Many of those who fell away fit into a similar pattern. On one hand, they resented the repressive narrowness

of their upbringings, but they also appreciated the many good aspects. The main issue was with the world

of ideas: No longer were they pro- tected, sheltered children, reading the propaganda of Hannah More. They were now thinking adults in the real world, reading the assaults of atheists, agnostics, and occultists. Their parents and their church had not provided answers to such attacks on their faith. Nor had they trained their children in the critical examination of the Biblical worldview vs. other world views, which would have provided them with the tools to find answers for themselves The story of the great author George Eliot (the pen-name of Mary Ann Evans) was very upsetting. I had grown up reading her stories but had never known the story of her life. She was raised an Evangelical and loved God with all her heart (but, unfortu- nately, she had not been taught how

to love Him with her mind). Her hero was William Wilberforce, and when she was 19 she wrote, “Oh that I might be made as useful in my lowly and obscure station as he [Wilberforce] was in the exalted one assigned to him” (p. 199). In another letter, she said that she would be happy if the only music she ever heard again in her life were worship music. However, all was not well. Bradley notes that “Three years later she rejected Christianity in a con- version which was almost as cataclys- mic as those which had brought others to vital religion” (p. 199).
What was it that shattered Evan’s faith? She read two books of
Biblical criticism, Charles Hennell’s “Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity,” and Strauss’ “Life of Jesus.” Utterly disillusioned, she aban- doned her faith and spent the rest of her days alone in the universe, without God. She tried her utmost to live a moral and selfless life without divine assistance, but failed miserably. In the 1850s, when she had become a suc- cessful author, she met George Lewes, a philosopher and scientist. Lewes was a married man, but they “fell in love.” Since he had no legal grounds for divorce, he simply abandoned his wife and moved in with Evans. They lived together as though married until Lewes’ death in 1878, trying to pre- tend that Lewes’ real wife didn’t really exist. What a wonderful beginning and yet such a horrible shipwreck for Mary Ann Evan’s life.

What sickened me the most was the fact that Evans lost her faith through reading the works of Hennell and Strauss! At this point in history, those men are no longer taken seriously. Their works have been completely refuted. No careful, thinking person today could ever lose faith by read- ing Strauss! In our time, some people lose their faith over the Jesus Seminar, but the western Church has come a long way in scholarship. Right off the top of my head I can think of at least three books, two by Protestants and one by a Catholic, which solidly refute the theories of the Jesus Seminar (and there are many more). Why didn’t the nineteenth-century English Evangelicals produce solid responses to Strauss and others? Why were they so lazy in this area when they were so diligent in every other aspect of life? Why did a whole generation have to be robbed of their faith in Christ? Why did a sweet young girl like Mary Ann Evans have to get deceived, fall away, and then live a life alienated from God as the mistress of another woman’s husband? True, Evans and all the others were adults, accountable to God for their actions and beliefs. But from

a Biblical perspective, they were also sheep whose shepherds had failed to protect them from savage wolves.
The book’s conclusion left me with deep grief in my heart for a genera- tion now long dead. And I thought
of today’s English, the great-great grandchildren of the Evangelical generation. An England where the Royal Family has degenerated into tabloid trash, where Mick Jagger has become a knight, and where instead of Christian spirituality they follow everything from Hare Krishna to Harry Potter. And don’t forget those wonderful Brits who convert to Islam, like shoe-bomber Richard Reed. What a travesty!
When Vishal Mangalwadi joined me in the office the next morning, I told him about my reading experience and how badly it had bothered me. Vishal immediately said that the present- day Indian church is failing in the exact same manner. He mentioned
as an example the attacks of Hindu journalist/politician Arun Shourie against the gospels a few years ago. I was in Calcutta then and read them each week as they came out in The Asian Age newspaper. He had used his connections to write full paged, syn- dicated articles attacking the Bible for several Sundays in a row, culminating

on Easter Sunday. (Apparently, some- one forgot to tell him that Hindus are tolerant of all religions!) The amazing thing about it was he was using old, outworn, nineteenth-century argu- ments against Christianity. A few weeks later, one Christian leader gave a pathetic, insipid reply in the op-ed section of the Asian Age, but that was it. The rest of the Indian church was publicly quiet.
I mentioned the articles to some col- leagues at the Bible college where I taught. Some were unaware of them and others seemed rather sheepish, as if the articles might be shaking their faith as well! One person said that maybe RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) or some such group should write a response. But no one from any of the well- funded seminaries in India ever said or wrote a word. Nor did any of the well-paid church bishops, who in addition to their salaries get free housing and transportation. Several years later, they still remain silent! And not only that, there is more
to the scandal. In 1989, Sita Ram Goel wrote his “History of Hindu- Christian Encounters” (Voice of India Publishing). Around the same time, Voice of India also published “Psychology of Prophetism.” Over twelve years later, the Indian church still has NOT responded to these attacks against Christianity. When Arun Shourie wrote “Missionaries in India,” (1994) only one person, Vishal Mangalwadi, responded with a book. No one has of yet answered his newest anti-Christian polemic, “Harvesting our Souls.”

Why does the Indian church allow such intellectual attacks to go unchallenged? Are the bishops and seminarians afraid that if they write well-researched answers that some- body might beat them up or throw rocks at them? What really is the problem here? Perhaps the same anti- intellectual laziness which destroyed English Evangelicalism. Please do not  underestimatetheintelligenceofour Indian young people. Many Christians alloverIndiahavereadtheseattacks, especially the ones serialized in The Asian Age. How many of them have already lost their faith because no one in the church bothered to give them an answer? Maybe we should just tell them to “Trust and obey and go on your way.” Is that what the church leaders think? They should not fool themselves. The young people will go on their way, out of the Church and into Hinduism or something else.

The fault, however, does not lie with the Indian Church alone, but with the Western missions groups that pour untold millions of dollars into India. These groups seem not to have learned anything at all from the fail- ures of both English and American Evangelicalism. For they will invest millions of dollars to send western tracts, dig wells, build hospitals,
and give free food to impoverished Muslims in India. But if someone requests a few thousand dollars to help Indian Christian thinkers do some serious research and writing, they are ignored.
Each generation of leaders in each nation will be accountable for the sheep in their care. They will answer for it at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Which reminds me...possibly no other group in church history was more aware of the Judgment Seat of Christ than the nineteenth-century English Evangelicals. They were, in fact, overly aware of it, almost to the point of neurosis. How devastatingly ironic it
is that those same people will have to give an account at the Judgment Seat of Christ for losing entire generations, starting with their own children, because they were too lazy to challenge the wolves at the door.
May the Indian church awake before it ends up in the same defeated place, guilty of the blood of its own sheep that it cared not to defend! 

- Jonathan W Rice, IJFM,