Grace Withers Without Adversity | Behold Your God Podcast

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Welcome to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Media Grazie, and I'm joined again today by my good friend and pastor,

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Dr. John Snyder, author of the Behold Your God study series and pastor of Christ Church New Albany.

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John, we're five episodes into the podcast now. How are you liking it so far? Actually, I'm surprised that I like it a lot.

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Matt knows that every time that they point a camera at me, I feel very uncomfortable.

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My mouth goes dry. I start spitting cotton balls. They have to bring me water, bubble gum, anything. And sometimes we have in the earlier study, especially, we'd have to take 14 takes and six hours to get eight minutes that was right.

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So when we talked about doing this, the thought of saying things is exciting.

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The thought of saying things in front of a camera to me is terrifying. But having said all that, it is a chance for us to talk about things and to say things that I don't get a chance to say in a full sermon.

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It's not enough material that we would devote 50 minutes to, and it may not even get into one of our studies.

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So it's a great opportunity to talk about practical issues. Yeah, I agree. Man, last night I was looking at my memories, which is a very modern phenomenon, having your memories served up to you by social media.

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And I saw that something that I tweeted seven years ago yesterday on November 15, 2011.

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And it said, today I started working on a project that has the potential to be the most amazing thing

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I've ever had the honor to be a part of. And that project, of course, turned into the Behold Your God, Rethinking God Biblically Study, which was the first project that I ever produced, the first thing that Medi Gratia ever did.

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And so it was a pretty cool Ebenezer there. But having worked with you in this capacity for seven years now,

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I do know that you're not a fan of being in front of the camera, and neither am I. But just like I'm grateful for everything else that the

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Lord has given us to do in the last seven years, I really am grateful for this opportunity. So today the subject that we're considering is spiritual correspondence.

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And that is just a great word. I don't know if there are any other etymology nerds out there like me, but I just think that is such a great word.

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It's from the correspondence. It's from the early 15th century, originally meaning congruence or harmony or agreement.

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You know, we still use it in that sense. These numbers correspond to these points on the map.

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These two things answer to one another. And then by the mid 1600s, the word had developed this sense of communication by written letter, which passed between correspondence.

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And that's what we want to talk about for a little while today, spiritual letter writing. So John, the use of letters in spiritual correspondence.

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I think the Lord has been very kind to us, that He's allowed us to use this as a means of doing real help to other souls and to receive it for ourselves.

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I mean, I think that probably all of us, I hope, can still look back at letters that were written, even if, you know, you're part of the email generation and it didn't come in the mailbox.

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But still, correspondence that came, words from someone whose heart was in harmony with yours and truths that were laid before you, that you could just take when you have time to quiet the soul and to get alone with the letter, with your

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Lord, and to open it up and to read and to really take to heart things that someone felt was so important, they actually sat down and wrote it to you instead of just sending it in a quick text or a phone call.

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And we see this throughout history. I mean, obviously the New Testament, half the New Testament is made up of letters where Paul couldn't be face -to -face with the people and how grateful we are that he writes things as in the book of Romans, for example, where he says,

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I intended to be with you, but I've been hindered. We read later that the hindrance was because he was not done doing that work, you know, in Asia Minor.

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And so he couldn't leave at that time. But we are so grateful that God orchestrated things in such a way that Paul put down in a letter the very things that he felt that a new church needed to understand about themselves, about Christ, about all of life.

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And now we get to sit in on it. It's like we get to be with Paul sitting down with the church. And so obviously the

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New Testament is extraordinary. It's unique. It is God guiding the letter writing so that it's exactly what he wanted.

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But we do see other letter writers since then. And particularly when you think of the great letter writers of the 17th, 18th, 19th century.

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So some of my favorites are Rutherford, Newton, Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd -Jones, and then there are many other lesser known ones.

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Well, in the interest of time then for today's show, let's just talk about a few of those men and then later in the

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Supporter Appreciation Show, in just a few minutes, we'll get into the practice of writing as it continues most commonly in our day in various forms of online communication.

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Some benefits to that and some things to avoid. And then we'll also talk about a couple other guys that we won't be able to squeeze into this one.

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First, let's talk about a man whose letters have really meant quite a bit to both of us, Samuel Rutherford.

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I have this beautiful edition of his letters printed in Edinburgh in 1881 that was given to me by a dearly loved friend back in 2012.

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But the letters of Samuel Rutherford are available from the Banner of Truth today. Yeah, this would be the more modern copy.

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Yeah, so that's the entire letters. It is. And then there's also a Puritan paperback version that I guess are just selected letters.

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Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so those are available from the BannerofTruth .org. So, John, tell us about Rutherford.

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Why do you think his letters have been so powerfully used to minister to people over the last few hundred years?

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Well, we've already introduced Rutherford to folks before. So I think suffice it to say he was a pastor in the first half of the 17th century.

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It was a pretty tumultuous period, a lot of suffering due to religious convictions, and Rutherford was one of those.

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Rutherford pastored in a little town of Anwerth, but most of his life was not spent there, though in his letters he says he would have really preferred to be there just to pastor a small group of people.

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He went from Anwerth to being put under arrest for his religious convictions and sent to the town in the north of Scotland, Aberdeen.

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And he was there for a number of years until political climate changed and he was released. Now, he came back to Anwerth for just a short period, but was immediately sent to London to be one of the

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Scottish advisors. There were just a handful, to help the Westminster divines, the Westminster theologians, to craft the

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Westminster Confession of Faith, and Rutherford was pretty instrumental in that. After that was finished, he returned to Scotland, and still he's not allowed to pastor his little flock again, but instead he was sent to St.

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Andrews University at St. Andrews. And he was co -pastoring a church with a friend, Blair, and he was also the head theologian to train the next generation of ministers there.

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I think that when we consider his letters, we read things about, we read recommendations, because even in his day they became kind of a spiritual classic.

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So what are some of those? Well, Richard Baxter, let's just take him. Baxter was a bitter opponent, a

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Puritan, but a bitter opponent when it came to ecclesiology of Rutherford. Rutherford was a staunch

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Presbyterian, and I'm a Baptist, and I like Rutherford probably more than he would like me, because Rutherford was really upset with people that said you have a freedom of conscience with regard to ecclesiology.

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Baxter was the guy that would say, well, we need to leave more freedom of conscience. So they battled back and forth some.

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Baxter said that some of Rutherford's books were the worst books ever printed, and then he said, but his letters, his letters, that collection was the greatest book outside of the

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Scriptures in the English language. Also, another one, Spurgeon. Now, Spurgeon read so widely, and he gave so many recommendations, but Spurgeon said about Rutherford's letters that in them he was like an eagle who soared straight above the clouds, looked into the sun with an unflinching eye, and comes back and tells us what he sees.

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So Rutherford sees through the clouds that most of us feel that we're covered with, sees the infinite brightness of Christ, and comes back, and especially in his letters that are written from prison, lays that out.

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Yes, Spurgeon said, when we are dead and gone, let the world know that Spurgeon held

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Rutherford's letters to be the nearest thing to inspiration, which can be found in all the writings of mere men.

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So that's pretty high praise. That's flowery language from a flowery guy. But let's get into some excerpts from his letters and see if we can see why.

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Yeah, so we've chosen a few. Let's lump them under two main categories, and I think these are the strengths of Rutherford.

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As with any spiritual letter writer, you're writing to a person in a particular situation, and so you are needing to have a biblical understanding.

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So our letter writer needs to be well -versed in Scripture, but there also needs to be a very warm and experiential understanding of those things for your own soul.

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In other words, it's like an older brother or sister taking a younger brother or sister by the hand through a particular part of the

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Christian path. They know Scripture, but they also know how Christ, through His Spirit, applied that Scripture to them.

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And they're able then to bring that to bear on another person. And really, we see just one ray of the wisdom of God in the fact that He has set the church up to work this way.

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And so, two areas I think Rutherford excels. One is the issue of the supreme attraction of Christ.

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The things he writes about Christ, to me, are worth buying any Rutherford book. So if you look at Rutherford's books, and I have a few, and they're kind of hard to find right now.

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But if you look at them, on every page, he shoots a few cannonballs over at this era, usually

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Catholicism. He shoots a few cannonballs over at licentious living. You know, we're saved by grace, so we can live any way we want.

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And then, in the midst of all of his polemical, argumentative writing, it'll be like there's just a small section on every page where he turns and he can't help but tell you about Christ.

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And it's just worth the whole thing. So, I want us to look at some of those letters and just some excerpts on Christ.

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But the other one is the area of suffering. He lost his wife to illness. He lost his mother to illness.

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He lost all but one child to illness. Suffered in prison.

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Of all the people that I read, Rutherford suffered in a way that I don't know that anyone else

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I read has suffered. And when we read him, comfort other people, especially those who have lost, those who have had to bury children, those who have had to endure great suffering for the name of Christ.

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The things that Rutherford says, the way he brings Christ to apply to that situation, it really puts not just comfort, but courage in the soul.

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Why don't you read us one from when he was a pastor? Right, so views of Christ under this category.

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So this is written from Anwerth, 1632. It's in letter 23. He says of Christ, There is none like him, and I would not exchange one smile of his lovely face with kingdoms.

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Right, so sweet statement about Christ. Nobody like him. I wouldn't trade him for a kingdom.

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But that's when Rutherford was a pastor. That's when things were good. That's when people were coming from everywhere to listen to this young minister talk about Christ.

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But what does he say when he's lost everything? Family, loved ones, church.

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What does he say from prison about Christ? Yes, so five hard years later from Aberdeen in letter 226.

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He says, Christ is a well of life, but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom?

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This soul of ours hath love and cannot but love some fair one.

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And oh, what a fair one. What an only one. What an excellent, lovely, ravishing one is

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Jesus. Yeah. I think you could almost take a word search engine.

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You know, if you could get Rutherford's works in a digital copy and look up the word oh. Because all through there you just find him continually stopping and saying,

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Oh, what an only one. Oh, what a fair one is this Christ. I remember reading where Rutherford said that when he was in prison, if anyone in his church would have told him before he went to prison how near and intimate a relationship one might experience with Christ, even in this life, he said he would have called them a fanatic.

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He would have said they had lost their mind. But once he reached prison, the kindness of the

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Lord in that cell to him raised all of his expectations. And I think that that's one thing of advice

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I would give to someone that reads these letters. I remember reading Spurgeon's statement about this. And so I start on letter one.

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These are put together by Andrew Bonar. And there are 365 letters, one for every day.

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So I start on January 1st with letter one. And it's OK. Letter two, it's

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OK. And by about letter three, I'm thinking, Spurgeon, I think you were a bit flowery there.

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If you locate the letters where he's on his way, so it's no longer

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Anworth that he's writing from, those are fine. But especially when they're in Aberdeen, when he's in prison.

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If you're finding his letters hard to read, start with the ones in Aberdeen. That's when they really excel.

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You know, he also writes to, when he's a professor at St. Andrews and seeing students and other

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Christians grow cold, he writes this in 1653, letter 362.

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So almost the end of the book, he writes, we dwell far from the well and complain but dryly of our dryness.

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We are rather dry than thirsty. Well, what about suffering? What does he write about suffering when he's a pastor?

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So July 1636 in letter 59, he says, if you were not Christ's wheat appointed to be bred in his house, he would not grind you.

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I remember reading another letter of his where he talked about the same general theme, but using the metaphor of a stone.

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He said, the Christian was a stone chosen by Christ and being fashioned for a living temple.

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So it would receive many knocks and blows of the chisel. And so Rutherford said, why are we surprised when life sends us these blows?

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He said, if we were a common stone in the field meant for nothing, well, then we would receive no blows.

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And so really encouraging to realize that there is a purpose behind the suffering. But again, I think you have an excerpt from a prison when he speaks of suffering there.

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Yeah, so 1636 from Aberdeen, letter 69. Believe God's word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences.

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Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.

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Yeah, perfect picture there. On the sea, the shore is within view, the great rocks along the shore.

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Your ship goes up and down, back and forth with the tide, and it looks as if the rock is doing it.

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It's not, you know. Yeah. You know, and Rutherford being often able to see the sea.

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We find him, St. Andrews is right there on the seaside where, you know, when we filmed there. And another place he says that your heart is not the compass that Christ sails the ship by, you know.

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I mean, we both have talked about this, how in the Christian life, how infrequently our emotions are steady.

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And yet Christ does not sail this Christian life by that unsteady compass. Well, here's a longer excerpt from a letter.

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This is also written 1637 from Aberdeen, letter 165.

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If your Lord calls you to suffering, do not be dismayed. For he will provide a deeper portion of Christ in your suffering.

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The softest pillow will be placed under your head, though you must set your bare feet among thorns.

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Do not be afraid at suffering for Christ, for he has a sweet peace for a sufferer.

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God has called you to Christ's side. And if the wind is now in his face, you cannot expect to rest on the sheltered side of the hill.

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You cannot be above your master who received many an innocent stroke.

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The greatest temptation out of hell is to live without trials. A pool of standing water will turn stagnant.

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Faith grows more with the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace withers without adversity.

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You cannot sneak quietly into heaven without a cross. Crosses form us into his image.

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They cut away the pieces of our corruption. Lord, cut, carve, wound.

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Lord, do anything to perfect your image in us and to make us fit for glory. We need winnowing before we enter the kingdom of God.

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Oh, what I owe to the file, hammer, and furnace. Why should I be surprised at the plow that makes such deep furrows in my soul?

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Whatever direction the wind blows, it will blow us to the Lord. His hand will direct us safely to the heavenly shore to find the weight of eternal glory.

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As we look back to our pains and suffering, we shall see that suffering is not worthy to be compared to our first night's welcome home in heaven.

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If we could smell of heaven and our country above, our crosses would not bite us.

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Lay all your loads by faith on Christ. Ease yourself and let him bear all.

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He can, he does, and he will bear you. Whether God comes with a rod or a crown, he comes with himself.

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Have courage. I am your salvation. Welcome, Rutherford says, welcome

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Jesus. Yeah, that's just classic Rutherford. From the depths, able to give comfort to other people, you know, as a faithful shepherd.

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I think that some of the things that, out of that long reading, that really jump out.

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One is that Rutherford refuses to see his suffering as disconnected from Christ.

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If you follow Christ and Christ received many blows, even in his innocence, you cannot be surprised that you receive blows.

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You cannot seek, you know, he says, the sheltered side of the hill when Christ is receiving the wind in his face.

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So if the church is receiving the wind in his face, if the gospel is receiving the brunt of the culture's attack, the believer will suffer with Christ in that.

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But another thing, you know, that he says that probably is a little shocking to us today, is that suffering is actually a very good thing for sanctification.

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Or what he says here, the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without trials. Stagnant water, you know, it pollutes.

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When we think of the Christian life, we don't often think. Now, I know that we can say this in a sermon, we can read it in a book, we can read it in a quote.

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But very few of us, while we're in the midst of this wintry blasts, think to ourselves, you know, if God had not sent me this wintry blast today,

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I would not be nearly as aware of my dependence on Christ. I would not be clinging to Him nearly as tightly as I am.

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Usually we say things like this, I don't understand why this is happening. I would be a much better Christian if this problem weren't constantly agitating my soul.

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It's the exact opposite of the truth. Yeah, and you really can't, I mean, these talks about, why should

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I be surprised at the plow that makes such deep furrows in my soul? I'm reminded of another letter that he writes that says,

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I know that Christ is a good husbandman, He's a good farmer, He purposeth a crop. He's not plowing my soul in vain.

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But this necessity of suffering in the Christian life, this good that comes from suffering, that can really only be brought about by suffering in the

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Christian life, could not be more antithetical to the demonic lie that gets passed as the prosperity gospel in our day.

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The health, wealth and prosperity, you know, message of so many TV preachers and even men in pulpits in our towns.

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Yeah, and I think that we would have to apply it closer to home than the prosperity gospel. How many times as a pastor have

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I had genuine believers who would never get near the prosperity gospel kind of teaching, come to me and say,

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I work in an environment where there are a lot of ungodly people. Their mouths are foul, their jokes are foul, their comments, you know, they stick to me.

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I feel like I have to take a shower when I get home after work. Surely God doesn't want me in a place like that, but why not?

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We would pay to send missionaries to those environments. And you know, there's that desire to say, well,

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I wish I could just work in a ministry and then I would be surrounded by godly people with only pleasant circumstances that promote this blooming of Christ, you know.

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And we, look, we have to, even if we're still, like Rutherford said, we are still surprised at the plow every time.

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We think, why? But I am very grateful that no matter how much

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I whine and complain, God never hands the plow to me and say, well, where would you plow, John? He, you know,

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He understands my complete ignorance and He continues to be the perfect farmer. But, you know, at the end of that letter,

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Rutherford's statement, there's one other thing there that he always emphasizes, and that is if Christ Himself draws near to the soul, bringing suffering or hard circumstances, then bring suffering as long as Christ comes with it, you know.

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And that's a place where I think every believer, we don't delight in suffering, but we do delight in Christ and we can say to Him, I trust

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You enough that if You say that this is what I need, if You will come with it, then

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I won't complain. And our first night in heaven, you know, won't make us forget all about it.

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Yeah, yeah. Wonderful picture. Well, you mentioned that Rutherford's works are hard to get, and I just happen to be privy to a major unannounced project that Reformation Heritage Books has undertaken to do with Rutherford.

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Twelve volumes of heretofore untranslated works of Samuel Rutherford that were originally written in the

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Latin and have only been available to read in Latin to this day, that these guys are undertaking a massive translation project.

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Twelve volumes of previously unreleased and untranslated

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Samuel Rutherford coming in the coming days from Reformation Heritage Books. So watch for that announcement to come sometime in the coming future.

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Changing channels to John Newton, another great letter writer. We've just talked about, we've talked about Newton a good bit.

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In fact, our whole podcast last week was about one particular letter from John Newton. So what is it about his letters as a body, which are also collected for us?

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There are select letters of John Newton. There's a larger volume of John Newton. And then in his works,

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I think there's a whole section of his letters. So what is it about his letters as a body that are so appealing to you?

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Newton's letters, which actually do form three of the six volumes in the

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Banner of Truth edition, volume one, two, and, oh goodness, I think it's six, one, two, and six.

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But I might be wrong on the last one. We'll have to get you the proper information. I think that with Newton, there's a difference there.

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Very different writing from Rutherford. And most of us will find Newton easier to read. Some of Rutherford's letters use old

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Gaelic phrases that you think, now, what did that mean back then? But Newton, much less of that.

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Newton does not reach, in my opinion, the sublime heights that Rutherford does. He doesn't carry us past the clouds and give us such sights of Christ that we feel like we are, well, what

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Rutherford said, in the suburbs of heaven, kind of peeking over the wall and getting a glance into the kingdom.

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But what Newton does is he takes the same great realities that Rutherford talked about when he talked about Christ, and he brings it down into the everyday life of the

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Christian in a very balanced way. Really like, you know, it's like he becomes your own pastor in a way, you know, not as a substitute for our church or a pastor, but a friend to walk alongside of us.

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And so I think that with Newton, it's that very gentle, calm application of truths that's so helpful.

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So some excerpts from his letter. This one on difficult times and how it frees us from a wrong love of the world.

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Newton says in this letter, Afflictions are useful and in a degree necessary to keep alive in us a conviction of the vanity and unsatisfying nature of the present world and all its enjoyments.

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To remind us that this world is not our rest and to call our thoughts upward where our true treasure is and where our heart ought to be.

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When things go on much to our wish, our hearts are too prone to say it is good to be here.

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In that small excerpt, you have an example of what I said that it's not sublime descriptions of Christ, but it's a much more detailed practical statement about and that's just an excerpt.

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You know, the letter goes on to talk about some practical issues. I am amazed when I read Newton's letters, how you reach some places where the wisdom there is just so obviously from the

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Lord. And when you read Newton's own autobiography, you see that it's as if God allowed him to go through every unpleasant circumstance and to hear every lie and to struggle with every temptation before he brought him all the way to Christ.

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And that was used by the Lord later. I was just thinking if you don't know his life, then it's very well worth to dig into.

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What's the name of his kind of most well -known biography through many dangers, toils and snares?

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I think it's something along those lines. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. Yeah, we'll put a link for a couple of the modern editions.

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The older biography that's in his works is a little harder to read. It's kind of the old style, so it's a little slow.

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I know that Brian Edwards has one that's very simple and there are others. Yeah, but knowing his life, like you said, you can see how the

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Lord taught him these things so that he could go and speak. And there's a sense of certainty and experience that he's not just guessing at what the answer might be.

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He's saying, look, this is how I've had to live on these things. Yeah, and you even find that in his hymns. We know his most famous hymn,

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Amazing Grace, but actually he wrote hundreds of hymns in the little hymn book that was originally entitled

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The Only Hymns, named after his first pastor. I want to read the last two lines of a hymn that we often sing at church together.

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And it's a hymn in which Newton shows the believer crying out to God in times of hardship.

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It opens with this statement, I ask the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace, might more of his salvation know and seek more earnestly his faith.

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So that's a great request. It's a request that every Christian is asked. We don't put it into poetry, but we say that God, I want to know you better.

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I want to be more like you. I want to seek your face. That's a dangerous prayer. Yeah, he goes on to say this,

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It was he who taught me thus to pray. Well, that's good. And he, I trust, has answered prayer.

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That's good. But it has been in such a way as almost drove me to despair. And he goes through and uses the life of Jonah as the example here of how

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God brings hard times in the life. And we think at times, well, the answer to that right prayer that he put in my heart is that he's going to destroy me.

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But he's not. Listen to the conclusion. Lord, why is this? I trembling cried,

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Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death? And the answer from God, To sin this way?

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The Lord replied, I answer prayer for grace and faith. These inward trials I employ from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou mayest seek thy all in me.

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Yeah. Yeah, he mentions in the quote that I just read that, you know, that this is, these are necessary to keep alive in us a conviction of the vanity and unsatisfying nature of the present world.

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I mean, we're not going to just become convinced of that on our own. Yeah. Yeah.

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I mean, we can hear it in a sermon. We can. I write it in a sermon. And before the ink is dry on the page, the world whispers in my ear.

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But really, John, we are your friend here. You know, the things that are here that God has given, they'll satisfy.

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You know, in other words, the hand that God's hands that hand us these kindnesses, that can satisfy without his face.

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And that's a terrible lie. Let me read this excerpt from another letter from Newton on intimacy with God and prayer and the word and how that's the best of teachers.

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Newton writes, You may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort than by a day or week's converse with the best of men or the most studious pursual of many folios or many books.

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Again, it's we're listening to a man who knows God, but he also knows himself. Which of us, the first the first excerpt you read about suffering, which of us could say when life got really easy and my bank account increased, my prayer, my prayers, my quiet times, they skyrocketed.

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I mean, they went so high and deep. It's not what we usually say. And again, in this one, which of us can not recognize what he's saying here to be true, that there have been times in our in our life when our

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God knew that we needed in an unusual way to be taught of him. And what he said in a concentrated moment when it's just me and my king and an open

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Bible had had more impact on my life than than a library full of books. So speaking of the value of the

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Bible, Newton wrote this in another letter. He said, I wish you may profit by my experience.

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Alas, how much time have I lost and wasted, which had I been wise, I would have devoted to reading and studying the

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Bible. But my evil heart obstructs the dictates of my judgment. I often feel a reluctance to read this book of books and a disposition to hew out broken cisterns, which afford me no water while the fountain of living waters are close within my reach.

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What an encouragement to hear the author of Amazing Grace admit what we all feel, that sometimes an evil heart obstructs even what we know that we want to do and what we should do.

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And he feels this reluctance to open the scriptures and how much he wishes he could go back and, you know, and open it.

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Yeah. You know, we said that Newton took the same truths that Rutherford talked about, but he applied them in a more pastoral, simple, perhaps way.

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That's a great commentary on what we read from Rutherford. We dwell far from the well and complain but dryly of our dryness.

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We're dry, not thirsty. Well, Newton just puts it in everyday language. Not as poetic, but so it gets under our armor because it's just so plain, you know.

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I have a heart that would sometimes prefer the empty dugout ditch of the world to the word of God that he's given me.

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And as you said, it's encouraging to see that other believers have struggled with that before and have found the answer in Christ.

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So for the people listening, take that quote, we complain dryly.

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Explain what that means. Well, I think that, you know, that has been a quote that's haunted me because I feel like, you know,

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Rutherford followed me around and wrote it. So he says, we dwell far from the well.

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The well is Christ. We're far from it. Christ is there experientially.

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There's my Bible. It's over there on the desk. There's that moment. There's that hour in the morning.

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It's over there. I'm still in bed. And there's an infinite fountain there, but I'm dry.

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Now, I can get up and go there because I'm so thirsty. I just can't stand not to go. Or I can complain with a dry throat how dry

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I am. Well, are you dying of thirst? No, I'm not dying of thirst. I'm just kind of agitated. I mean, how many weeks, how many months of the

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Christian life can I look back on where you could describe John Snyder that way? He's dry.

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His throat is irritated. His life is scratchy, and he's kind of miserable. But he's not so thirsty that he lays everything else aside and goes and just shuts himself off from everything else to get alone with the

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Lord. To drink from the well. Yeah, yeah. So I think that, you know, what

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Newton's talking about is a perfect explanation of that, really. Well, here's a slightly longer excerpt on God being our

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Savior from beginning to end, and an encouragement to look to Him and not to look to ourselves.

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Newton writes, If any people have contributed a mite to their own salvation, it was more than we could do.

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If any were obedient and faithful to the first calls and impression of His Spirit, it was not our case.

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If any were prepared to receive Him beforehand, we know that we were in a state of alienation from Him.

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We needed sovereign, irresistible grace to save us, or we would be lost forever.

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If there are any who have a power of their own, we must confess ourselves poorer than they are.

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We cannot watch unless He watches with us. We cannot strive unless He strives with us.

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We cannot stand one moment unless He holds us up. And we believe we must perish after all unless His faithfulness is engaged to keep us.

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But this we trust He will do, not for our righteousness, but for His own name's sake.

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And because having loved us with an everlasting love, He has been pleased in loving kindness to draw us to Himself and to be found by us when we sought

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Him not. Yeah, what a clear description of how God has dealt with every believer.

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Nothing that Newton says here is unique to Newton. We may not realize it as clearly as Newton did, but there are no strong men.

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There's never been a strong man outside of Jesus of Nazareth. Every other man is a spiritual weakling.

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And the men that walk near the Lord, and the men that are used to do extraordinary things, men of whom the world is not worthy,

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Hebrews says, those are simply men or women who have felt their weakness so keenly that they have not dared to walk a foot from the

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Savior. I love what he says there, that even in your best frames, even at your best moments after the best quiet time, after the best sermon that you heard at church, and you think,

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I go home now to live the most dedicated life that's ever been lived to this great

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Savior. He says, even then, you have nothing in yourself to look to. There's, you know, you're like a, you're a rickety bridge.

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You don't have strength in yourself. And then He gives us the things we do look to. His person, not mine,

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His love, not mine, His sufferings, not mine, His intercession, His compassion,

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His fullness, His faithfulness. Those are the delightful themes of the believer. And that's really where the believer finds the strength.

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There are several places in this excerpt, and really in all of his letters, where you, I remember what

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I believe Spurgeon said of Bunyan, you know, prick him and he bleeds biblene. Well, this is not just Newton, like you said, this is not unique to him, but this is his having drunk from the fountain of the

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Scriptures, and he's now, he's saying things like, I remember God saying, I will be found by people who don't seek me.

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Yeah, yeah. There's so many places through here, he's just echoing the Word of God. There's another place where Newton is especially helpful in his letters, and that is in engaging in controversy, or as normal people say, in controversy.

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Right attitudes and disagreements, especially theological debates. Newton lived in a day when there was a lot of debate, there was a lot of theological debate, and it was over things that matter.

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Even men who were agreed in the foundational subjects of the Gospel, and were brothers in Christ.

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Just like today, we have significant disagreements about things that we feel matter, but the way that we engage in those things, so, so important when we belong to a king.

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So this little excerpt, he says, Yeah, and that's too true for all of us.

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If your goal is to win the argument, if your goal is to score the point, and we'll talk about this in our next session, particularly with the new opportunities we have to do good, or to do harm through social media.

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If that's your goal, it's a pretty easy task, you can do it. If your goal is to bring glory to God, then you have to have some elements, and he's quoting from James here, you're going to have to have a wisdom that comes from God, and the evidence of that is, it's pure, it's peaceable, it's gentle.

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And we saw that in the life of our captain, Christ, even on the battlefield. We see this in Paul dealing with those within the church, and it's a good guide for us.

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You know, there's another one I'll read on the same theme. He says, What will it profit a man if he gains his cause, if he wins the battle?

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If he gains his cause and silences his adversary, if at the same time he loses that humble, tender frame of spirit in which the

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Lord delights and to which the promise of his presence is made. So you win the argument, but you have lost the delight of your king in what you were doing.

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Then you're the loser. There's a great article. It's over on the

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Ligonier blog. It's from Nathan Bingham. He collects a letter.

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It's a long letter. We won't read it here, but it's on controversy on the Ligonier site.

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Definitely go and read that one. We'll put a link to that one in the show notes there, but just could not be more helpful, especially in our day, advice about how to engage in theological dispute.

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Well, we've talked for too long. We do want to tell you about one other relationship between John Newton and a man called

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William Cooper, which we'll do in our Supporters Appreciation Podcast.

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Just a reminder about that. That's a podcast that we do to show our appreciation to people who do come alongside of MediGratia as monthly supporters.

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Those are the kinds of things that we try to make available to the people that appreciate the work that we do and make it possible.

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If you'd like to find out about that, you can go to MediGratia .org, or in English, that's

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TheMeansOfGrace .org. You can find out about how to become a supporter for any amount per month.

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So we do want to say again that if you can't afford to feed your family, tithe to your church, and be a supporter of MediGratia, and you would like to have access to this material, just send us an email.

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So you can send us an email at support at MediGratia .org for that. But we do appreciate you guys listening, and we'll see you next week.