my burg

David Kingston told this story on Sunday: F. E. Marsh was a pastor of a New York church in the 1900’s. After he preached on the subject of stealing, a young man came to him and said, "Pastor, you have put me in a bad fix. I've stolen from my employer, and I'm ashamed to tell him about it. You see, I'm a boat builder, and the man I work for is an unbeliever. I have often talked to him about Christ, but he only laughs at me. In my work, expensive copper nails are used because they won't rust in water. I've been taking some of them home for a boat I am building in my backyard. I'm afraid if I tell my boss what I've done and offer to pay for them, he'll think I'm a hypocrite, and I'll never be able to reach him for Christ. Yet, my conscience is bothered." Marsh counseled the young man to confess his sin, and this is what happened. Later when the man saw the preacher again, he exclaimed, "Pastor, I've settled that matter and I...

The message, "The Honor of Marriage", is here . “Do you take this woman to be your wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love and cherish her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her as long as you both shall live?” “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing to a young bride and groom from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1943.) When Billy Graham was asked his secret of love, being married fifty-four years to the same person, he said, "Ruth and I are happily incompatible." His wife, Ruth Bell, said this about marriage: “A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The opening of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Kar...

Thinking about Chris's statements about anger coming from our "blocked goals." Ephesians 4:26-27 says, "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." This chart has been helpful in showing people how to resolve anger.

"The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone." (John Stott, The Cross of Christ , p 160)

"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12) “Ordained by God as the basic unit of human organization, the family is ... the first school of human instruction. Parents take small, self-centered monsters, who spend much of their time screaming defiantly and hurling peas on the carpet, and teach them to share, to wait their turn, to respect others' property. These lessons translate into respect for others, self-restraint, obedience to law-in short, into the virtues of individual character that are vital to a society's survival.” (-- Charles Colson, 1931- ) “The Western family is rapidly approaching its third violent crisis. The climax will be reached before the end of the century. It will be reflected in extremely high rates of all the symptoms of family decay – divorce, childlessness, disloyalty of family members to each other, and the unwillingness of many persons to burden themselves with...

My introduction to Puritan theology in seminary was the study of William Ames' The Marrow of Theology . I read again his comments on faith (in light of a recent sermon on the Sabbath commandment) and found them so helpful... 1. Faith is the resting of the heart on God , the author of life and eternal salvation, so that we may be saved from all evil through Him and may follow all good. Isaiah 10:20, "Lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in faith..." 11. Faith is the virtue by which, clinging-to the faithfulness of God, we lean upon him, so that we may obtain what he gives to us . John 3:33, He who receives his testimony has sealed that God is true; John 1:12, As many as received him believed in his name. 12. These five things belong together in divine faith: 1) a knowl­edge of what God testifies to; 2) a pious affection toward God which gives his testimony greatest force with us; 3) an assent given to the truth testified to, because of this affection toward God who...