B - PAST WITNESSES
- John Austin Baker - Tammy Faye Bakker - Wayne Barber - William Barclay - Basil of Caesara - Ern Baxter - Thomas Becon - V Gilbert Beers - Richard Meux Benson - WE Best - John Blanchard - Andrew Bonar - Horatius Bonar -
==john austin baker======
John Austin Baker (11 January 1928 – 4 June 2014) was a Church of England bishop, Bishop of Salisbury from 1982 until his retirement in 1993. Made a deacon at Michaelmas 1954 (19 September), by Robert Hay, Bishop of Buckingham, at High Wycombe parish church, and ordained priest in 1955, he began his ministry with curacies at All Saint's Cuddesdon and St Anselm's Hatch End, after which he was a fellow and lecturer at Corpus Christi College, Oxford until 1973. From then until his ordination to the episcopate he was a residential canon at Westminster Abbey and also for some years chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. He was consecrated a bishop on 2 February 1982, by Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster Abbey.
John Austin Baker
“Love cannot be explained; you cannot give lessons in it. You either ‘see’ what it is about or you do not; you either catch its spirit or you go through life without it. You cannot imitate it, or do its works as a duty. It has to be spontaneous, a free commitment. If therefore God has made the world an arena for love, then he himself is a lover. This means that he is vulnerable—not by nature, as we are to help us discover love, but by deliberate choice, that is, by love itself which must be the heart of his own being.”— John Austin Baker, The Foolishness of God
==tammy faye bakker==============
Tamara Faye Messner ( March 7, 1942 – July 20, 2007) was an American evangelist, singer, author, talk show host, and television personality. She gained notice for her work with The PTL Club, a televangelist program she co-founded with her husband Jim Bakker in 1974. They had hosted their own puppet-show series for local programming in the early 1960s; Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park
Deep into the AIDS crisis in October 1985, a prominent Los Angeles minister named Stephen Pieters traveled to a television studio for a satellite-link interview that his friends begged him to avoid.
On the other end was the Pentecostal televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, of the Charlotte-based PTL Television Network. Then at her peak, with more than 13 million viewers, she and her broadcaster husband, Jim, held great sway with conservative Christian followers whose beliefs were seen as sharply at odds with the gay community and AIDS patients such as Rev. Pieters.
“It would wreck my reputation as a liberal gay activist preacher,” Rev. Pieters, who died July 8 at 70, recalled being told. But the 25-minute segment became a watershed in public perceptions about AIDS. Rev. Pieters also emerged as an eloquent and nationally renowned spokesman for those facing AIDS, which at the time was considered not only a likely death sentence but also put patients at high risk for experiencing shame and humiliation. -Washington Post: The Rev. Stephen Pieters, who helped shift views on AIDS, dies at 70 7.11.23
On the other end was the Pentecostal televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, of the Charlotte-based PTL Television Network. Then at her peak, with more than 13 million viewers, she and her broadcaster husband, Jim, held great sway with conservative Christian followers whose beliefs were seen as sharply at odds with the gay community and AIDS patients such as Rev. Pieters.
“It would wreck my reputation as a liberal gay activist preacher,” Rev. Pieters, who died July 8 at 70, recalled being told. But the 25-minute segment became a watershed in public perceptions about AIDS. Rev. Pieters also emerged as an eloquent and nationally renowned spokesman for those facing AIDS, which at the time was considered not only a likely death sentence but also put patients at high risk for experiencing shame and humiliation. -Washington Post: The Rev. Stephen Pieters, who helped shift views on AIDS, dies at 70 7.11.23
Tammy Faye Bakker
"The Bible says, 'Judge not lest ye be judged.' Our lives are supposed to be hospitals, not courtrooms." ---Tammy Faye Bakker
==wayne barber===================
Wayne Barber
In Ephesians 1 we find the riches of our salvation. It is important for every believer to know who he is and what he has in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:3 sums it all up. He says He has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. The First National Bank of God is Jesus Christ, and we have everything spiritually that we will ever need in Him. We are rich today in Jesus Christ.
--Wayne Barber
william barclay
William Barclay
The idea behind the word parable is “to throw alongside of.” It is a story thrown alongside the truth intended to teach. Parables have been called “earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.”
i. “The Greek parabole is wider than our ‘parable’; in the LXX it translates masal, which includes proverbs, riddles and wise sayings as well as parables. Matthew uses it for instance for Jesus’ cryptic saying about defilement (Matthew 15:10-11, 15), and in Matthew 24:32 (‘lesson’) it indicates a comparison.” (France)
ii. “It had a double advantage upon their hearers: first, upon their memory, we being very apt to remember stories. Second, upon their minds, to put them upon studying the meaning of what they heard so delivered.” (Poole)
iii. Parables generally teach one main point or principle. We can get into trouble by expecting that they be intricate systems of theology, with the smallest detail revealing hidden truths. “A parable is not an allegory; an allegory is a story in which every possible detail has an inner meaning; but an allegory has to be read and studied; a parable is heard. We must be very careful not to make allegories of the parables.” --William Barclay
i. “The Greek parabole is wider than our ‘parable’; in the LXX it translates masal, which includes proverbs, riddles and wise sayings as well as parables. Matthew uses it for instance for Jesus’ cryptic saying about defilement (Matthew 15:10-11, 15), and in Matthew 24:32 (‘lesson’) it indicates a comparison.” (France)
ii. “It had a double advantage upon their hearers: first, upon their memory, we being very apt to remember stories. Second, upon their minds, to put them upon studying the meaning of what they heard so delivered.” (Poole)
iii. Parables generally teach one main point or principle. We can get into trouble by expecting that they be intricate systems of theology, with the smallest detail revealing hidden truths. “A parable is not an allegory; an allegory is a story in which every possible detail has an inner meaning; but an allegory has to be read and studied; a parable is heard. We must be very careful not to make allegories of the parables.” --William Barclay
William Barclay
Let us stop there and see the truth so far in this parable.
(i) It should never have been called the parable of the Prodigal Son, for the son is not the hero. It should be called the parable of the Loving Father, for it tells us rather about a father's love than a son's sin.
(ii) It tells us much about the forgiveness of God. The father must have been waiting and watching for the son to come home, for he saw him a long way off. When he came, he forgave him with no recriminations. There is a way of forgiving, when forgiveness is conferred as a favour. It is even worse, when someone is forgiven, but always by hint and by word and by threat his sin is held over him.
Once Lincoln was asked how he was going to treat the rebellious southerners when they had finally been defeated and had returned to the Union of the United States. The questioner expected that Lincoln would take a dire vengeance, but he answered, "I will treat them as if they had never been away."
It is the wonder of the love of God that he treats us like that.
That is not the end of the story. There enters the elder brother who was actually sorry that his brother had come home. He stands for the self-righteous Pharisees who would rather see a sinner destroyed than saved. Certain things stand out about him.
(i) His attitude shows that his years of obedience to his father had been years of grim duty and not of loving service.
(ii) His attitude is one of utter lack of sympathy. He refers to the prodigal, not as any brother, but as your son. He was the kind of self-righteous character who would cheerfully have kicked a man farther into the gutter when he was already down.
(iii) He had a peculiarly nasty mind. There is no mention of harlots until he mentions them. He, no doubt, suspected his brother of the sins he himself would have liked to commit.
Once again we have the amazing truth that it is easier to confess to God than it is to many a man; that God is more merciful in his judgments than many an orthodox man; that the love of God is far broader than the love of man; and that God can forgive when men refuse to forgive. In face of a love like that we cannot be other than lost in wonder, love and praise. --William Barclay
(i) It should never have been called the parable of the Prodigal Son, for the son is not the hero. It should be called the parable of the Loving Father, for it tells us rather about a father's love than a son's sin.
(ii) It tells us much about the forgiveness of God. The father must have been waiting and watching for the son to come home, for he saw him a long way off. When he came, he forgave him with no recriminations. There is a way of forgiving, when forgiveness is conferred as a favour. It is even worse, when someone is forgiven, but always by hint and by word and by threat his sin is held over him.
Once Lincoln was asked how he was going to treat the rebellious southerners when they had finally been defeated and had returned to the Union of the United States. The questioner expected that Lincoln would take a dire vengeance, but he answered, "I will treat them as if they had never been away."
It is the wonder of the love of God that he treats us like that.
That is not the end of the story. There enters the elder brother who was actually sorry that his brother had come home. He stands for the self-righteous Pharisees who would rather see a sinner destroyed than saved. Certain things stand out about him.
(i) His attitude shows that his years of obedience to his father had been years of grim duty and not of loving service.
(ii) His attitude is one of utter lack of sympathy. He refers to the prodigal, not as any brother, but as your son. He was the kind of self-righteous character who would cheerfully have kicked a man farther into the gutter when he was already down.
(iii) He had a peculiarly nasty mind. There is no mention of harlots until he mentions them. He, no doubt, suspected his brother of the sins he himself would have liked to commit.
Once again we have the amazing truth that it is easier to confess to God than it is to many a man; that God is more merciful in his judgments than many an orthodox man; that the love of God is far broader than the love of man; and that God can forgive when men refuse to forgive. In face of a love like that we cannot be other than lost in wonder, love and praise. --William Barclay
==Basil of Caesara=============
St Basil
"John has admirably confined the conception within circumscribed boundaries by two words, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ For thought cannot travel outside ‘was,’ nor imagination beyond ‘beginning‘. Let your thought travel ever so far backward you cannot get beyond the ‘was,’ and however you may strain and strive to see what is beyond the Son, you will find it impossible to get further than the ‘beginning.’ True religion, therefore, thus teaches us to think of the Son together with the Father.” -St. Basil the Great; On The Spirit
==ern baxter=================
William John Ernest (Ern) Baxter (1914–1993) was a Canadian Pentecostal evangelist. Born in
Saskatchewan, Canada, he was baptised into a Presbyterian family. His mother was involved with a
holiness church and following his father’s conversion they went into classical Pentecostalism. Their city was visited by a Scandinavian itinerant minister with a "signs and wonders" approach to Christianity. While in the Baxter’s home city, he taught on the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Ern Baxter’s mother was the first in those meetings to receive the "baptism of power." Baxter recalled seeing his father help her into the house drunk in the Spirit. Later in his teenage years, Baxter went through a period where he lost his faith in reaction to the legalism of religion and became seriously ill from pneumonia.
Saskatchewan, Canada, he was baptised into a Presbyterian family. His mother was involved with a
holiness church and following his father’s conversion they went into classical Pentecostalism. Their city was visited by a Scandinavian itinerant minister with a "signs and wonders" approach to Christianity. While in the Baxter’s home city, he taught on the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Ern Baxter’s mother was the first in those meetings to receive the "baptism of power." Baxter recalled seeing his father help her into the house drunk in the Spirit. Later in his teenage years, Baxter went through a period where he lost his faith in reaction to the legalism of religion and became seriously ill from pneumonia.
"God is spoken of more as being angry than He is loving. And anger is the counter side of love and it's essential to maintain the purity of love. Love without moral indignation is sloppy guk. It's unworthy of all of us, but it's infinetely unworthy of God." --Ern Baxter
==thomas becon====================
Thomas Beccon or Becon (c. 1511–1567) was an English cleric and Protestant reformer from Norfolk. He entered the University of Cambridge in March 1526-27, probably St John's College. He studied under Hugh Latimer and was ordained in 1533. In 1532 he was admitted a member of the community of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Rushworth - now Rushford.
Thomas Becon
“O Lord, give us grace not only to be hearers of the word, but also doers of the same; not only to love, but to live Thy gospel; not only to profess, but also to practice Thy blessed commandments, to the honor of Thy holy name. Amen. —Thomas Becon (c. 1512–1567)
==V gilbert Beers======
V. Gilbert Beers, author of Christian books and former Christianity Today editor, dies
V. Gilbert Beers was a prolific author of Christian books and reference materials and was the editor of Christianity Today magazine in the 1980s. Beers, 95, died of pneumonia on Feb. 28 at a hospice center in Naperville, said his son, Ron. He was previously a longtime Elgin resident. Victor Gilbert Beers was born in the tiny downstate community of Sidell, the son of a grain farmer. He received a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in 1950. He then earned a master’s degree in religious education in 1953 from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he picked up a bachelor of divinity degree from the seminary the following year and a master of theology degree in 1955. (Chicago Tribune 4/2/24) READ MORE>>>>>
V. Gilbert Beers was a prolific author of Christian books and reference materials and was the editor of Christianity Today magazine in the 1980s. Beers, 95, died of pneumonia on Feb. 28 at a hospice center in Naperville, said his son, Ron. He was previously a longtime Elgin resident. Victor Gilbert Beers was born in the tiny downstate community of Sidell, the son of a grain farmer. He received a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in 1950. He then earned a master’s degree in religious education in 1953 from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he picked up a bachelor of divinity degree from the seminary the following year and a master of theology degree in 1955. (Chicago Tribune 4/2/24) READ MORE>>>>>
==Richard Meux Benson======
Richardx Meux Benson
“Think of the Holy Ghost dwelling within us, mindful of all our past sins. But his memory of our sins is not censorious. It is not that he would reproach us, as weak mean-spirited persons regard someone who has strayed, eager to accuse while thinking to make escape impossible. The memory of the Holy Ghost is the memory of magnanimous love. He remembers our past sin most truly, but only because he desires to deliver us from it. He would teach us to remember it, he would bring us to the same remembrance as his, but only to effect our deliverance. He desires that all this work of sin may be done away, that all these full powers of his love may stream forth on our soul, and that he may ‘see of the travail’ of his divine purpose ‘and be satisfied'(Is. 53:11), as we are formed anew and perfected in the very image of Christ.” ~ Richard Meux Benson, Look to the Glory
==w.e. best===================
Wilbern Elias Best was born on June 18, 1919, in East Texas. He died on June 15, 2007, after being ill for several years. Converted at the age of 20, he began to preach soon after, and pastored several churches, the last being in Houston, Texas. He was an avid reader, spending most of his days in the study of God’s Word, and was well versed in both Greek and Hebrew. Although he began preaching in a Baptist church, the assembly eventually became non-denominational. He wrote 25 books and pamphlets composed of sermons he preached to his congregation. These books were distributed in English and Spanish around the world from 1970 to 2018 at no cost via the W.E. Best Book Missionary Trust.
WE Best
The confusion today is not objective but subjective. In other words the real problem lies in the subjective condition of man's heart: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.." (Jer 17:9). Our only safeguard is the objective revelation of Jesus Christ. Man-made concepts of Jesus Christ are easily turned into opposite concepts.
--WE Best; Christ Could Not be Tempted; 1986
--WE Best; Christ Could Not be Tempted; 1986
WE Best
The Bible defines sin as transgression of the law (I John 3:4). Man is subject to certain desires which are essential to human nature. However, these desires are to be gratified in God's appointed ways. Adam failed to do this. Therefore, he fell and all his posterity fell in him. Temptation is outward allurement. It suggests to inward depravity the advantage of succumbing to the outward attraction. Thus, man's inward weakness is influenced to some object of natural desire. Without the restraint of the fear of God (Jer 32:40), a man will submit to fulfilling his inward evil desire. --WE Best; Christ Could Not be Tempted; 1986
“Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.” ― Josh Billings
“Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.”
― Josh Billings
― Josh Billings
"There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."― Josh Billings
“One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.”
― Josh Billings
― Josh Billings
==john blanchard=================
John Blanchard Files
Woody Allen, the well-known movie director, screenwriter, and actor, once said, “I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” The quirky quotation is famous but fatally flawed. God has the date of every person’s death in his calendar, and there is nothing that anyone can do to have this divinely made appointment cancelled or postponed: “No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death” (Eccl. 8:8).
For millions the world over, the inevitability of death casts a growing shadow over life. The internationally renowned British artist Damien Hirst, said to be worth more than $300 million, told the Daily Telegraph Review: “Death is definitely something that I think about every day…. You try to avoid it, but it’s such a big thing that you can’t.” The Bible speaks of many who “through fear of death” are “subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:15). In countless cases, their chains are forged by fear of the unknown. As Professor Edgar Andrews puts it, “Uncertainty breeds fear. And fear brings mental bondage, casting its inescapable shadow over life and robbing man of lasting peace or joy.” Yet this sobering scenario ought not to include Christians, supremely because they can have the assurance of being “in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17), the One who brought aboutwhat John Owen memorably called “the death of death.” As we get a clear grasp of what this means, one word sums up how we should approach death’s inevitable onset, and that word is gratefully.
First, we should be grateful that in the providence of God we were spared until we were saved. Once in my early years and twice in my teens, I was rescued from death. As a young boy on my native island of Guernsey, I fell into a huge barrel of water at the vinery where my father worked and was saved only because a workman happened to pass by. Years later, I was swimming at midnight in rough seas off the island’s south coast cliffs and was on the brink of drowning when rescued by a stronger swimmer. Not long afterward, I slipped while trying to work my way along a cliff face, and my despairing hand grasped a plant strong enough to hold me. Had I not survived all three incidents, this article could not have been written, and my spirit would now be in “chains of gloomy darkness” (2 Peter 2:4), waiting to be reunited with my resurrection body, that I might then be cast body and soul into hell.
When Jesus’ disciples returned from a preaching mission rejoicing at the amazing results they had seen, Jesus told them, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). As our earthly lives move toward their inevitable ends, we should constantly be grateful that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8) and that God spared us until He brought us to lay hold on all that Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished on our behalf.
Second, we should be grateful that we have been preserved. The apostle John writes with a breaking heart about those who “went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19). Although members of the organized, visible church, their defection showed that they had no part in the promise that “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). When we reflect on our lives, not only with so many of John Newton’s “dangers, toils and snares” but with doubts and fears, trials and temptations, foibles and failures, compromise and cowardice, and the times when we have fallen into whatever sin “clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1) to us, how grateful we should be for God’s goodness and mercy. When we add the sobering truth that each one of us shares Paul’s testimony that “nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom. 7:18), no matter how long we have been Christians, we must surely consider it more than a minor miracle that we have been preserved.
When I visited the Billy Graham Library near Charlotte, N.C., the item that made the biggest impression on me was the rough-hewn stone that marks the grave of the evangelist’s wife, Ruth Bell Graham. She died on June 14, 2007, aged eighty-seven, and the stone bears the delightful inscription: “End of Construction — Thank you for your patience.” As we approach death, we should constantly be thanking God for His patient and sustaining grace.
Third, we should be grateful for the promise of what lies ahead. At the April 2010 funeral of Malcolm McLaren, manager of the rock band Sex Pistols, his hearse was draped with a line from one of their songs: “Too fast to live, too young to die.” McLaren had led a dazzling, chaotic, noisy, glamorous, and expensive life, but behind the hearse, a coach carrying mourners had a sign indicating McLaren’s supposed destination: “Nowhere.” Yet annihilation is no more than wishful thinking; it does nothing to eliminate the terrible truth that the ungodly face “eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46). For Christians, the prospect is wonderfully different:
Think of what will be absent. “Death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). There will be no temptations to face, no burdens to bear, no guilt to grieve over, no sickness to battle, no unanswered questions to baffle us, no ignorance to humiliate us, and no unsatisfied desires to frustrate us. Nothing that has scarred and stained our lives on earth will be there to shame us. There will be no regrets, no remorse, no second thoughts, no disappointments, and no lost causes. Best of all, there will be no indwelling sin to plague us. As J.I. Packer puts it, “There will be no sin in heaven, for those who are in heaven will not have it in them to sin any more.” Small wonder that David cried out to God: “In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).
Think of who will be present. Heaven is the home of “innumerable angels” (Heb. 12:22), including cherubim, seraphim, and archangels, beings who have never sinned but have been praising and serving God in glorious and harmonious unity since the moment of their creation. All of God’s redeemed people — “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9) — will be there.
Best of all, our Savior will be there. Ever since my darling wife Joyce was called home last year, I have been sustained in the assurance that, as her memorial stone testifies, she is now “with Christ, which is far better” (Phil. 1:23), sharing the unimaginable bliss enjoyed by “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:2). A friend of mine, blind since he was eighteen months old, loves to say, “The next person I see will be Jesus.” It is impossible to imagine the wonder of what it will mean to “see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Yet in fulfillment of God’s plan that His people be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29), the Bible holds out an even more amazing promise: “We shall be like him” (1 John 3:3). What a staggering prospect. Picking up John’s “shorthand notes” in 1 John 3, we shall be as holy as He is holy, as righteous as He is righteous, as pure as He is pure. Even the weakest Christian on earth will be a glorious member of what D.L. Moody called “the aristocracy of holiness.” Amazingly, we shall not feel out of place in His presence.
How now shall we die? We may not have an easy journey into “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4); it may be prolonged and painful. Yet however our endurance (and even our faith) may be tested, how can we do other than make that inevitable journey in gratitude that by God’s unfathomable grace we were saved from sin’s penalty, have known His goodness and mercy in preserving us in the faith, and can be assured of discovering that, as John Bunyan wrote, “Death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace”? In a shaky hand just three days before he died, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote on a scrap of paper for his wife Bethan and their family: “Do not pray for healing. Do not hold me back from the glory.” It is no credit to our heavenly Father if we are reluctant to go home. Ironically, in the light of his view on eternal security, John Wesley was able to say of his early Methodists: “Our people die well.” If we die with grateful hearts, we will do the same
--John Blanchard; How Now Shall We Die 10.1.11
For millions the world over, the inevitability of death casts a growing shadow over life. The internationally renowned British artist Damien Hirst, said to be worth more than $300 million, told the Daily Telegraph Review: “Death is definitely something that I think about every day…. You try to avoid it, but it’s such a big thing that you can’t.” The Bible speaks of many who “through fear of death” are “subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:15). In countless cases, their chains are forged by fear of the unknown. As Professor Edgar Andrews puts it, “Uncertainty breeds fear. And fear brings mental bondage, casting its inescapable shadow over life and robbing man of lasting peace or joy.” Yet this sobering scenario ought not to include Christians, supremely because they can have the assurance of being “in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17), the One who brought aboutwhat John Owen memorably called “the death of death.” As we get a clear grasp of what this means, one word sums up how we should approach death’s inevitable onset, and that word is gratefully.
First, we should be grateful that in the providence of God we were spared until we were saved. Once in my early years and twice in my teens, I was rescued from death. As a young boy on my native island of Guernsey, I fell into a huge barrel of water at the vinery where my father worked and was saved only because a workman happened to pass by. Years later, I was swimming at midnight in rough seas off the island’s south coast cliffs and was on the brink of drowning when rescued by a stronger swimmer. Not long afterward, I slipped while trying to work my way along a cliff face, and my despairing hand grasped a plant strong enough to hold me. Had I not survived all three incidents, this article could not have been written, and my spirit would now be in “chains of gloomy darkness” (2 Peter 2:4), waiting to be reunited with my resurrection body, that I might then be cast body and soul into hell.
When Jesus’ disciples returned from a preaching mission rejoicing at the amazing results they had seen, Jesus told them, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). As our earthly lives move toward their inevitable ends, we should constantly be grateful that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8) and that God spared us until He brought us to lay hold on all that Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished on our behalf.
Second, we should be grateful that we have been preserved. The apostle John writes with a breaking heart about those who “went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19). Although members of the organized, visible church, their defection showed that they had no part in the promise that “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). When we reflect on our lives, not only with so many of John Newton’s “dangers, toils and snares” but with doubts and fears, trials and temptations, foibles and failures, compromise and cowardice, and the times when we have fallen into whatever sin “clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1) to us, how grateful we should be for God’s goodness and mercy. When we add the sobering truth that each one of us shares Paul’s testimony that “nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom. 7:18), no matter how long we have been Christians, we must surely consider it more than a minor miracle that we have been preserved.
When I visited the Billy Graham Library near Charlotte, N.C., the item that made the biggest impression on me was the rough-hewn stone that marks the grave of the evangelist’s wife, Ruth Bell Graham. She died on June 14, 2007, aged eighty-seven, and the stone bears the delightful inscription: “End of Construction — Thank you for your patience.” As we approach death, we should constantly be thanking God for His patient and sustaining grace.
Third, we should be grateful for the promise of what lies ahead. At the April 2010 funeral of Malcolm McLaren, manager of the rock band Sex Pistols, his hearse was draped with a line from one of their songs: “Too fast to live, too young to die.” McLaren had led a dazzling, chaotic, noisy, glamorous, and expensive life, but behind the hearse, a coach carrying mourners had a sign indicating McLaren’s supposed destination: “Nowhere.” Yet annihilation is no more than wishful thinking; it does nothing to eliminate the terrible truth that the ungodly face “eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46). For Christians, the prospect is wonderfully different:
Think of what will be absent. “Death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). There will be no temptations to face, no burdens to bear, no guilt to grieve over, no sickness to battle, no unanswered questions to baffle us, no ignorance to humiliate us, and no unsatisfied desires to frustrate us. Nothing that has scarred and stained our lives on earth will be there to shame us. There will be no regrets, no remorse, no second thoughts, no disappointments, and no lost causes. Best of all, there will be no indwelling sin to plague us. As J.I. Packer puts it, “There will be no sin in heaven, for those who are in heaven will not have it in them to sin any more.” Small wonder that David cried out to God: “In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).
Think of who will be present. Heaven is the home of “innumerable angels” (Heb. 12:22), including cherubim, seraphim, and archangels, beings who have never sinned but have been praising and serving God in glorious and harmonious unity since the moment of their creation. All of God’s redeemed people — “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9) — will be there.
Best of all, our Savior will be there. Ever since my darling wife Joyce was called home last year, I have been sustained in the assurance that, as her memorial stone testifies, she is now “with Christ, which is far better” (Phil. 1:23), sharing the unimaginable bliss enjoyed by “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:2). A friend of mine, blind since he was eighteen months old, loves to say, “The next person I see will be Jesus.” It is impossible to imagine the wonder of what it will mean to “see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Yet in fulfillment of God’s plan that His people be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29), the Bible holds out an even more amazing promise: “We shall be like him” (1 John 3:3). What a staggering prospect. Picking up John’s “shorthand notes” in 1 John 3, we shall be as holy as He is holy, as righteous as He is righteous, as pure as He is pure. Even the weakest Christian on earth will be a glorious member of what D.L. Moody called “the aristocracy of holiness.” Amazingly, we shall not feel out of place in His presence.
How now shall we die? We may not have an easy journey into “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4); it may be prolonged and painful. Yet however our endurance (and even our faith) may be tested, how can we do other than make that inevitable journey in gratitude that by God’s unfathomable grace we were saved from sin’s penalty, have known His goodness and mercy in preserving us in the faith, and can be assured of discovering that, as John Bunyan wrote, “Death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace”? In a shaky hand just three days before he died, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote on a scrap of paper for his wife Bethan and their family: “Do not pray for healing. Do not hold me back from the glory.” It is no credit to our heavenly Father if we are reluctant to go home. Ironically, in the light of his view on eternal security, John Wesley was able to say of his early Methodists: “Our people die well.” If we die with grateful hearts, we will do the same
--John Blanchard; How Now Shall We Die 10.1.11
“Our greatest affliction is not anxiety, or even guilt, but rather homesickness—a nostalgia or ineradicable yearning to be at home with God.” --Donald Bloesch
andrew bonar
Andrew Alexander Bonar (29 May 1810 in Edinburgh – 30 December 1892 in Glasgow) was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, a contemporary and acquaintance of Robert Murray M'Cheyne and youngest brother of Horatius Bonar. Andrew Bonar studied divinity at the University of Edinburgh from 1831 and was ordained in 1835. His first position was as minister at Collace in Perthshire, from 1838 to 1856 (both in the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland). With Robert Murray McCheyne he visited Palestine in 1839 to inquire into the condition of the Jews there. Bonar joined the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. He served as minister of Finnieston Free Church, Glasgow, from 1856 till his death.
"It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17: 11).
"There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat" (Exod. 25: 22).
READER! Have you ever felt your need of salvation! Have you ever sought it, as one who must obtain it—or perish?
When a sinner is first brought to feel sin to be a burden—when he feels wrath abiding upon his soul, and that his whole past life has been a life without God—his question is, "What must I do to be saved?" "Is it possible that my sin can ever be forgiven by a God who is angry with the wicked every day?" The awakened publican’s cry is, "O God, be merciful to me!" And this cry finds God in the very attitude of grace, proclaiming his name. "The Lord, the Lord God merciful," and pointing to the Saviour on the throne of grace, where we may obtain mercy.
In Old Testament times, the Lord set forth our condition on the one hand, and His respect toward us in the other, in one part of the furniture of the Tabernacle. He did this in the mercy-seat. This name is given to that part of the ark, in the holy of holies, whereon the blood used to be sprinkled on the day of atonement. The mercy-seat was the lid of the ark, as broad and long as the ark itself, and made of the same precious material; and the lid, or mercy-seat, being sprinkled with blood seven times, set forth to us the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin.
Now, it is where the blood is, that mercy for sinners is to be found. For they deserve to die; and their deserved doom must be exhibited, and exacted at the hands of another, if they themselves are to escape. Therefore, the place where mercy can be found, is the place where the blood is. No other place, O sinner, in the wide world for you! But to that place you may come—nay, must come, if you would escape the wrath of God.
(1) You must come as a sinner. You must come with nothing but sin. On the day of atonement, the priest in Israel who came forward to the mercy-seat, laid down nothing but sin on that blood-sprinkled lid. He showed a sinner's way of coming to the Lord; and yet he brought nothing what-ever but sin, to be laid down there. So the sinner, in coming to the mercy-seat, brings nothing but sin. He confesses the sin he was born with: "Behold! I was shapen in iniquity"; and lays it down on the sprinkled blood. He confesses his inheritance of corruption from Adam, and lays it down on that mercy-seat. He confesses his own personal sins, in their various forms, aspects, aggravations; the sins of his life and lips, as far as memory can remember, and lays them down upon the sprinkled blood. He calls to mind his sins as a member of society; sins in the relations of life—sins against the Church of God, sins as one of a guilty nation, sins as a man belonging to a world lying in wickedness. And as he feels and deplores all, he lays down his innumerable sins on the mercy-seat. He tries to look in, and bring out the sins of his heart— sins of thought, feeling, affection, desire, hope. His hardness of heart, his blindness, above all, self, in its ten thousand times ten thousand forms, all are laid upon the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. His unbelief—the grace of God, as well as His law, despised, slighted, undervalued, set aside, times without number—unbelief, even since he knew the Lord, caused by the deceitfulness of sin, by earthly care, by passing pleasure, by Satan's wiles, by a too pliable or too fearful soul—this, too, is brought out, confessed, and laid upon the blood. Yet more: the sin of his holy things is laid there too; for the very act of confession has its sin, there is some blemish in the very act of faith; there is a film in the eye that looks to the atoning Saviour. Who can understand his errors? Oh, who can declare his own heart's utter sinfulness!
At length it is done. But what does it discover? He has laid down his whole soul there—his very self; but in all this there has been nothing but sin for him to leave there! No holiness is laid down on that blood, for it is from all sin that the blood cleanses.
You come, therefore, wholly as a sinner. Nothing can be more deeply solemnising than this. To have such a burden to lay down there—to have nothing else than a burden of this kind, and to lay all this on the Lord Jesus Christ! How humbling, how fitted to lay the sinner in the dust, is the view this gives of his utter guilt and vileness! And yet nothing is more inviting, for it is with sin he comes, and as a sinner; and the Lord Jesus meets the sin and the sinner. Is there, then, any room for delay? any ground for excuse for hesitating to come at once? --Andrew Bonar; The Mercy Seat
"There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat" (Exod. 25: 22).
READER! Have you ever felt your need of salvation! Have you ever sought it, as one who must obtain it—or perish?
When a sinner is first brought to feel sin to be a burden—when he feels wrath abiding upon his soul, and that his whole past life has been a life without God—his question is, "What must I do to be saved?" "Is it possible that my sin can ever be forgiven by a God who is angry with the wicked every day?" The awakened publican’s cry is, "O God, be merciful to me!" And this cry finds God in the very attitude of grace, proclaiming his name. "The Lord, the Lord God merciful," and pointing to the Saviour on the throne of grace, where we may obtain mercy.
In Old Testament times, the Lord set forth our condition on the one hand, and His respect toward us in the other, in one part of the furniture of the Tabernacle. He did this in the mercy-seat. This name is given to that part of the ark, in the holy of holies, whereon the blood used to be sprinkled on the day of atonement. The mercy-seat was the lid of the ark, as broad and long as the ark itself, and made of the same precious material; and the lid, or mercy-seat, being sprinkled with blood seven times, set forth to us the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin.
Now, it is where the blood is, that mercy for sinners is to be found. For they deserve to die; and their deserved doom must be exhibited, and exacted at the hands of another, if they themselves are to escape. Therefore, the place where mercy can be found, is the place where the blood is. No other place, O sinner, in the wide world for you! But to that place you may come—nay, must come, if you would escape the wrath of God.
(1) You must come as a sinner. You must come with nothing but sin. On the day of atonement, the priest in Israel who came forward to the mercy-seat, laid down nothing but sin on that blood-sprinkled lid. He showed a sinner's way of coming to the Lord; and yet he brought nothing what-ever but sin, to be laid down there. So the sinner, in coming to the mercy-seat, brings nothing but sin. He confesses the sin he was born with: "Behold! I was shapen in iniquity"; and lays it down on the sprinkled blood. He confesses his inheritance of corruption from Adam, and lays it down on that mercy-seat. He confesses his own personal sins, in their various forms, aspects, aggravations; the sins of his life and lips, as far as memory can remember, and lays them down upon the sprinkled blood. He calls to mind his sins as a member of society; sins in the relations of life—sins against the Church of God, sins as one of a guilty nation, sins as a man belonging to a world lying in wickedness. And as he feels and deplores all, he lays down his innumerable sins on the mercy-seat. He tries to look in, and bring out the sins of his heart— sins of thought, feeling, affection, desire, hope. His hardness of heart, his blindness, above all, self, in its ten thousand times ten thousand forms, all are laid upon the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. His unbelief—the grace of God, as well as His law, despised, slighted, undervalued, set aside, times without number—unbelief, even since he knew the Lord, caused by the deceitfulness of sin, by earthly care, by passing pleasure, by Satan's wiles, by a too pliable or too fearful soul—this, too, is brought out, confessed, and laid upon the blood. Yet more: the sin of his holy things is laid there too; for the very act of confession has its sin, there is some blemish in the very act of faith; there is a film in the eye that looks to the atoning Saviour. Who can understand his errors? Oh, who can declare his own heart's utter sinfulness!
At length it is done. But what does it discover? He has laid down his whole soul there—his very self; but in all this there has been nothing but sin for him to leave there! No holiness is laid down on that blood, for it is from all sin that the blood cleanses.
You come, therefore, wholly as a sinner. Nothing can be more deeply solemnising than this. To have such a burden to lay down there—to have nothing else than a burden of this kind, and to lay all this on the Lord Jesus Christ! How humbling, how fitted to lay the sinner in the dust, is the view this gives of his utter guilt and vileness! And yet nothing is more inviting, for it is with sin he comes, and as a sinner; and the Lord Jesus meets the sin and the sinner. Is there, then, any room for delay? any ground for excuse for hesitating to come at once? --Andrew Bonar; The Mercy Seat
“As the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, so likewise a cheerful thanksgiver.” --John Boys
