"Imperfect Truth Must Hinder Holiness"

"A holy life in man’s estimation may be simply a life of benevolence, or of austerity, or of punctual devotion, or of kindly geniality, or noble uprightness, or liberal sympathy with all creeds, all sects, all truths, and all errors. But a holy life in God’s estimation, and according to Bible teaching, must be founded upon truth, must begin personally, in conscious peace with God through the blood of the everlasting covenant, must grow with the increase of truth and deliverance from error, must be maintained by fellowship with God, in Christ Jesus, through the indwelling of the 'Spirit of holiness'. Error or imperfect truth must hinder holiness."

[Scottish churchman & hymn writer Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), God’s Way of Holiness; [via Kevin DeYoung's blog]

Biographical excerpt from Christian Classics Ethereal Library:

Horatius Bonar had a passionate heart for revival and was a friend and supporter of several revivalists. He was brother to the more well-known Andrew Bonar, and with him defended D. L. Moody's evangelistic ministry in Scotland. He authored a couple of excellent revival works, one including over a hundred biographical sketches...

Horatius was in fact one of eleven children, and of these an older brother, John James, and a younger, Andrew, also became ministers and were all closely involved, together with Thomas Chalmers, William C. Burns and Robert Murray M'Cheyne, in the important spiritual movements which affected many places in Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s.

William Wilberforce

The church history website christianity.com has a short overview of the life of William Wilberforce written by Dan Graves. (See below.) Many of you may have seen the film, but don't stop there! Films are notorious for twisting facts and glossing over spiritual issues. Read a good biography such as Hero for Humanity by Kevin Belmonte. [There's a copy in the FBC Library.] Christian biographies are an excellent way to learn how believers through the ages have persevered to the end, living out their lives to the glory of God. What an encouragement to our own Christian walk!  "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith..." (Heb.12:1-2)
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No man fought harder to abolish slavery than William Wilberforce. A member of Parliament, he introduced antislavery measures year after year for 40 years until he retired in 1825. On ... July 26, 1833, as he lay dying, word was brought him that the bill to outlaw slavery everywhere in the British empire had passed in Parliament. The dream for which he had struggled for decades was now within sight of fulfillment!

Wilberforce had not always been a serious opponent of slavery. As a youth he was a witty, somewhat dissipated man about town who had misspent his time at Cambridge. He was invited to every party.
A friend of William Pitt (who became Prime Minister) and a member of Parliament, Wilberforce seemed assured of a bright political future. And then in 1784, after winning his election in Yorkshire, he accompanied his sister to the Riviera for her health. Isaac Milner, a tutor at Queen's College Cambridge and acquaintance from college days was asked along. Isaac agreed.

Milner had become a deep and evangelical Christian. He began to persuade Wilberforce to commit his life to Christ. Wilberforce had always thought himself a Christian. Now he saw that total commitment to Christ was needed. He struggled in anguish for several months. During that time he read Philip Doddridge's The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Here was a faith far deeper than anything he had known. Gradually he yielded.

At once he began to wonder if it was proper for him to hold a seat in government. He confided in Pitt. Pitt, wanting Wilberforce as an ally, urged him to remain. Unsettled in his conscience, Wilberforce spoke to the rector John Newton. Newton, best remembered as the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace," had been converted while a blasphemous sailor and slaver. He counseled Wilberforce to remain in politics and champion good causes.

Friends suggested that the young man take up the slavery issue. Pitt also requested it. After many doubts, Wilberforce decided it was what God wanted. He also felt he must tackle causes which would raise the standard of life and morals in England. The friends who gathered around him became known as the Clapham sect because most lived in the village of Clapham.

Rarely in history have so many owed so much to so few. These dozen or so Clapham men and women not only fought against slavery but also against every sort of vice. Many were wealthy. They employed their worldly goods in behalf of godly causes. Education of the masses, support of Bible societies, private charity, protection of chimney sweeps, creation of Sunday Schools and orphanages--these and dozens of other causes received their attention. But it is the abolition of slavery which remains their greatest achievement.

  

 

Responding to Crisis

Natural disasters so easily touch our emotions, though I dare say we're often selective about which ones we choose to attach ourselves.  Some become deeply empathetic with the situation in one nation, yet are completely unresponsive to suffering in other parts of the world.  As Americans, I fear we too often direct our money at a problem and then feel we have done our part.  As believers we're called to go a step further, to look beyond physical needs to eternal ones.  We're called to direct our thoughts towards eternal realities ... even when there isn't a natural disaster involved.  Of course we should address physical need as God enables us.  But we must be cautious to not stop there.  There is a deeper crisis, a deeper need we dare not ignore.  Let's not limit Christian service to an emotional response to the Evening News, as tragic as those events may be.  Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) left the medical profession to become the pastor of a mission church in Wales, a choice often misunderstood by others.  His response gives insight into how we must never lose sight of man's deepest need, the need of a Savior able to offer eternal peace with a holy God.

"It is not often that I make any kind of personal reference from this pulpit, but I feel this morning that I must speak of an experience which bears on this very subject.  When I came here, people said to me: ‘Why give up good work – a good profession – after all, the medical profession, why give that up?  If you had been a bookie, for instance, and wanted to give that up to preach the gospel, we should understand and agree with you and say that you were doing a grand thing.  But medicine – a good profession, healing the sick and relieving pain!’  One man even said this, ‘If you were a solicitor [lawyer] and gave it up, I’d give you a pat on the back, but to give up medicine!’

‘Ah well!’ I felt like saying to them, ‘if you knew more about the work of a doctor, you would understand.  We but spend most of our time rendering people fit to go back to their sin!’  I saw men on their sick beds, I spoke to them of their immortal souls, they promised grand things.  Then they got better and back they went to their old sin!  I saw I was helping these men to sin and I decided that I would do no more of it.  I want to heal souls.  If a man has a diseased body and his soul is all right, he is all right to the end; but a man with a healthy body and a diseased soul is all right for sixty years or so and then he has to face an eternity of hell.  Ah, yes! we have sometimes to give up those which are good for that which is the best of all – the joy of salvation and newness of life."

[Martyn Lloyd Jones, The First Forty Years]

Reminder from Young Charles Spurgeon

Having come from a long line of Congregationalists, Spurgeon became convicted of the need for believer baptism soon after coming to the Lord as a young man. Though a member of a local Congregational church, he made arrangements for his baptism with a Baptist church some 8 miles away and wrote seeking permission from his parents. His father replied with reluctant consent. His mother also agreed, but was not enthusiastic about the prospect. She wrote the following to him...

"Ah, Charles, I often prayed the Lord to make you a Christian, but I never asked that you might become a Baptist."

Spurgeon wrote in response...

"Ah, Mother, the Lord has answered your prayer with His usual bounty, and has given you exceeding abundantly above what you asked or thought."

Though this brought a smile to my face, it also reminded me of the importance of praying regularly and fervently for the salvation of our children and grandchildren. Spurgeon recalled his mother reading the Scriptures to her children and pleading with them to be concerned about their souls. "I cannot tell how much I owe of the solemn words of my good mother..." he wrote. "I remember on one occasion her praying thus, 'Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.'... How can I ever forget when she bowed her knee, and with her arms about my neck, prayed, 'Oh, that my son may live before Thee!'"

[from "Spurgeon: A New Biography" by Arnold Dallimore]

Deep Waters

From the pen of Lilias Trotter, a late 19th/early 20th century missionary to Muslims in Algiers for over 38 years... a single, older woman with a weak heart. Mission boards rejected her... so she and two friends went on their own! She was a prolific artist, close friends with John Ruskin, in fact, as well as a writer. I look forward to reading more of her work!

She writes...
"I am come into deep waters" took on a new meaning this morning... It dawned that shallow waters were a place where you can neither sink nor swim. In deep waters it is either the one or the other... Swimming is the intensest, most strenuous form of motion. All of you is involved in it, and yet every inch of you is in abandonment of rest upon the water that bears you up. 'We rest on Thee and in Thy name we go.'

"Saint" George Got Around

Because of my interest in Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Great Britain, I was quite familiar with St. George being "the Patron Saint" of England. (Sort of like Athena being the "patron goddess" of Athens and Artemis/Diana being the "patron goddess" of Ephesus, isn't it?) I had assumed, therefore, that he had British roots. But when we traveled through France what do I discover? The French also claim George as theirs! Then we visited Greece... lo and behold... they consider George theirs! I talked with a native Greek friend at home about it and he claimed George was originally a martyred Greek believer. I had trouble trying to figure out how a Greek martyr ended up slaying dragons and saving damsels-in-distress in England. I was just amazed at how this guy happened to "get around" to such disparate areas!

Then I opened up this month's issue of "Christian History and Biography" and got the REAL lowdown on George. It turns out George was really a ROMAN general and Christian martyr, probably under the reign of Emperor Diocletian (just before Constantine). Now I should have been suspicious when my Greek friend claimed George was a Greek [it's that Greek thing again], though I concede that he COULD have been a Roman officer of Greek descent. By the time of Diocletian, emperors, officers and soldiers hailed from all over the Roman Empire, not just Italy. At the very least, it makes sense that George would have been recognized as a Christian martyr in Greece at a very early date.

Perhaps he also became familiar in Roman Britain and Gaul during the Christian era of the Roman Empire and thus entered into their respective cultural histories. Then along came those terribly romantic and inventive French troubadours [who, btw, originally hailed from Britain (migrating to the Brittany region of France - hence the NAME "Brittany", when the Anglo-Saxons pushed their way into England and pushed them out) bringing all of their British legends with them]. They probably added all the interesting "details" to the story. That's my guess, anyway. Isn't history fun? Has anyone run across George anywhere else?

Top Five Missionary Biographies

I've decided to separate "Missionary Biographies" from "Missions books" because I see the latter as a larger category. My Top Five would be as follows:

To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson, Courtney Anderson - If you were on my Christmas gift list last year, then this should come as no surprise. I LOVED this book and suspect it will make my REread list. Judson's attitude towards missions, the history of the early 19th Century American church concerning foreign missions, the cost of  serving on a foreign mission field, the difficulty of serving in Burma (modern Myanmar) ... all these make for fascinating reading AND it's an encouragement to the 21st Century believer.

Jonathan Edwards: A Life, George Marsden - Don't be intimidated by the size of this book. Marsden is a wonderful writer and you'll find yourself making quick progress. New Englanders in particular will enjoy the local history - the year Edwards was born the Deerfield (MA) Massacre occurred (involving members of his family!). Marsden also does an excellent job of presenting Edwards' ideas. (Iain Murray also wrote an excellent biography on Edwards.)

Zvi, Elwood McQuaid - You know the man who writes the column on the back page of "Israel My Glory" magazine? This is the story of his life as an orphaned Jewish child trying to hide out and escape from the Nazis in WWII, his subsequent faith in the Messiah and emigration to Israel. This autobiography will stay with you the rest of your life!

The Autobiography of George Muller - This little book is a gem and is sure to encourage you in your prayer life. I also read the Benge's children's book on Muller with my SS kids. Muller became a believer while in college and the transformation in his life was just breathtaking. I'm still looking for a more complete adult biography of him. Any suggestions?

Through Gates of Splendor, Elisabeth Elliot - No need to explain THIS one!

5 Classic Biographies on my "To Read" pile:

Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, Roland Bainton
William Tyndale, David Daniell
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, John Bunyan (autobiography)
Hero for Humanity: William Wilberforce, Kevin Belmonte
A Passion for Souls: D.L. Moody, Lyle Dorsett

What are YOUR Top Five?