Resources

It was described as ‘the harshest Budget for a generation’, with its ‘harsh medicine of tax hikes and spending cuts’.1 The new Chancellor’s financial programme, presented to Parliament on June 22, was an attempt to reduce the huge deficit in the British Government’s accounts. This is not the place to discuss the wisdom or otherwise […]

This treatise1, originally published in 1825 and entitled A View of Evangelical Repentance, is a precious description of the grace of repentance. The name of its author, the highly-esteemed Dr Colquhoun of Leith (1748-1827), will be familiar to many. He traces the grace of repentance to the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, and […]

John Milne (1807-68) was a pastor and evangelist who served the Lord in Scotland and India. He was also one of an outstanding group of ministers who God used to bring about a great awakening in Scotland in the early 1840’s. This account was written just after his death by his friend Horatius Bonar. Horatius […]

Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage (Psa. 119:54). If you have ever sung songs on long road trips, you know the value of singing while journeying. It helps time pass more quickly. It helps the mood stay positive. It helps recall home. It binds travellers together. It isn’t surprising, […]

This famous book has been reprinted in hardback by the Banner of Truth Trust. It is 784 pages in length. David Brainerd gave himself wholeheartedly to missionary endeavour among groups of American Indians in what is now north-eastern USA. He was spared to this work for only a few years, dying of tuberculosis in 1747 […]

Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. (James 1:17) Astronomers tell us that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has over three billion stars, that it is one thousand light years deep, that it is one […]

The current Pope (Joseph Ratzinger) entered office with a formidable reputation as the Vatican’s arch-conservative ‘enforcer’ of doctrine. In Protestant circles, it was conservative Evangelicals rather than mainline liberals that welcomed his appointment.1 Among those who praised his writings was Michael Horton (of Westminster Theological Seminary, California). While recognising that areas of disagreement exist, he […]

In 1821 a young clergyman’s son matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford. Amongst the cleverest of his generation, he knew nothing of the wisdom which can only be imparted by the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. Just previously, another young man, of similar academic capabilities, had graduated with an unexpectedly low third-class degree. […]

In so many churches today the centrality of preaching has lost its prominence. This sadly reflects a lack of trust not only in the authority of Scripture but also in the prominence that Jesus gave to the centrality of preaching. At the outset of his own ministry Jesus said to his disciples in Mark 1:38: […]

I have been listening to some cassettes of a certain style of preaching which seems to have swept the evangelical church. Its emphasis is the Bible as a history of redemption (which it is), but it claims to be the one Christian group which is expounding and exegeting Scripture. It takes large sweeps across the […]

What is the Doctrine of Invincible Grace? God converts and calls men . . . according to his own purpose and grace, which is given us in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 1:9). David Dickson The Lord never applies his grace of purpose to gain a soul but he prevails. James Durham The grace of God […]

I would normally preach through a Bible book. I am currently preaching through Colossians. Hence, this is what I have done: 1. Read the entire epistle to the Colossians a number of times, using the NKJV (the version the church uses) and other versions like NASB, NIV, ESV including the Bible in Chinese. We are […]

Later this month (September 2010) it is expected that John Henry Newman (1801-90) who was made a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church in 1879, will be ‘beatified’ by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to England. That is, Newman will be officially ‘the Blessed…’ and on his way to sainthood, Roman style. This must […]

‘Church Planting is not a very popular option for men aspiring to enter the ministry but it is a biblical one.’ The final year students in the year I began my theological studies were tense. There seemed to them to be too few pastoral vacancies for them to have any hope of a call to […]

In Biblical terms, conversion (from the Latin convertere = ‘to turn’) means to turn from sin to God; conversion is the act of turning. Both the Hebrew words sub and niham and the Greek words epistrepho and metanoeo bear this meaning. When translated into English, they indicate returning or turning back to God through a […]

Renew our days as of old. (Lamentations 5:21) John Girardeau, the Old School Presbyterian1 minister from Charleston, SC, in 1851 turned down the opportunity to pastor a large Presbyterian church in order to begin a church with African slaves, out of Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston. Girardeau’s methodology was to hold a weekly prayer meeting, to […]

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan once said of F. W. Robertson of Brighton: ‘Robertson believed that Christ did something or other, which, somehow or other, had some connection or other with salvation.’ This vague ‘mystification’ covers all the heretical and erroneous views of the atonement being mooted today. Indeed, F. W. Dillistone tells us enthusiastically: ‘there has […]

The history of the Christian church, if rightly regarded and used, can be a great source of strength, wisdom and stability to the serious Christian. On the other hand, Church history wrongly regarded and misused can be a stumbling block, an occasion of weakness and stagnation. There are three attitudes toward the past history of […]

My work before me is less with man and more with God. Isaac Ambrose Prayers and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything. John Eliot For thy name’s sake, lead me and guide me. (Psalm 31:3) O man of God, go on, go on; be valiant for that Plant of Renown, for that […]

How lonely sits the city. (Lamentations 1:1) The Apostle John’s vision of the glorified Christ reveals the Son of Man’s zeal for his glory and the work of his church. He is clothed with a robe, reaching to his feet, girded across his breast with a golden girdle. His head and his hair are white, […]

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. (James 1:16) Henry Ward Beecher, born in Litchfield, CT in 1813, was the most famous man of the nineteenth century. His father was the prominent, last of the Puritan preachers, Lyman Beecher1, and Henry’s siblings accomplished remarkable things. One brother was a prominent theologian. A sister began a […]

Protestantism can be an embarrassing concept at times . . . For the first twenty years of my life the term was identified with the Troubles which raged around my generation, and the ugly notion of taking aggravated and hostile sides against ‘the other sort’. As school life at a Protestant boys’ school gave way […]

The Free Church (Continuing) Assembly was addressed this summer [2010] by one of its evangelistic workers, Donald John Morrison, and this is what he said of the missionary to the Indians, David Brainerd. A man with a great missionary vision once said that ‘the spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer […]

Ian Hamilton was a minister for many years in the Church of Scotland. Since 1999 he has been the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church. His book, The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy: Drifting from the Truth in Confessional Scottish Churches1 has just been reissued in a revised edition with a new introduction, a chapter that details […]

Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ (James 1:13) Charles Templeton, a newspaper reporter from Toronto, after a night of carousing and drunkenness, says that he had a conversion experience. By 1945 he was preaching with Billy Graham at Youth for Christ rallies around the U.S. and Europe. […]