glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- repent and believe the Gospel I am very tired but do not want to go to bed. The house is quiet and I have been gathering books to take to church tonight to show Pete Pols. After the morning service I felt friendly and said hello to Pete and his wife. I had gone to the bathroom and as I was walking back to the church sanctuary I spotted Pete and his wife in the church library. Since it had been a long time since I had talked to Pete I decided to say hi and be friendly. I do not want to give the impression at church among the saints I am not a loving guy. I asked Pete what they were looking for in the church library? They were looking for books containing the sermons of John Calvin. We could find no books of sermons by Calvin. We did notice the elders had installed a new wall of bookshelves. But what sadden us is that all the books on the new bookshelves were paperback novels/Christian fiction. I am not into these kind of modern Christian books so I do not know what to call this type of literature? I told Pete I had many books at home containing the sermons of Calvin. I had Calvin�s sermons on Deuteronomy, Job, Second Samuel, Ephesians, Galatians, First and Second Timothy and Titus. Pete wanted to know if the way our pastor preaches is the way John Calvin preached back in the 16th century? I told Pete off the top of my head No. Our pastor preaches more doctrinally then Calvin. I said Calvin coming out the Renaissance/French Humanism was mainly concerned with preaching the text of Scripture simply. Calvin also in his preaching reacted against the way Scripture was preached in the Middle Ages. One finds among medieval preachers a tendency to allegorize. I also told Pete that Calvin was foremost a pastor. He always seeks to minister to the common people in his sermons. One does not find in Calvin 16th century Reformed Scholasticism. I told Pete that sometime he should compare the writings of Calvin (1509-1564) with his forerunner Francis Turretin (1623-1687)/compare for example Calvin�s Institutes of the Christian Religion Two Volumes with Francis Turretin�s Institutes of Elenctic Theology Three Volumes. Pete it seems as we talked was upset at our church position on seeing all the children in our church as children of God. We had had an infant baptized that morning and the Pastor had made several remarks that gave the congregation that all the children present who had been baptized as infants should see themselves as part of the people of God. Pete and I both agreed that one must repent and believe the Gospel in order for one to be considered one of God�s elect. There must be conviction of sin and a turning to God if one claims to be a Christian. How cans one claim to be a Christian without a changed life? Our pastor gives the impression sometimes that one can be a Christian because they were born in a Christian family or as he would put it �born in a covenant family.� Our pastor often says being born in a Christian family saves an individual, because he or she is born in the line of the covenant. Pete and I both agreed this morning that this kind of preaching breeds presumption and not holiness of life. We see in our church no calls from the pulpit to repent and believe the Gospel. What we hear in our church is that we are all Christians and we must obey the Law if we are to stay in a covenant relationship with God. What we have in our church is an OT religion and not an NT religion. Pete and I got into the talking about the way the Puritans of the 17th century preached. I mentioned to Pete the book by James Durham �Christ Crucified: The Marrow Of The Gospel In 72 Sermons On Isaiah 53.� Tonight I am taking this book by Durham to church with me for Pete to look at. We both see the need for us to be under preaching that calls us to repentance and faith. I told Pete the reason I keep reading book like �Christ Crucified� is to keep me aware of the constant need to repent and believe the Gospel. Pete and I talked about a ton of things. Pete grew up in the Netherlands Reformed Church, which has some extreme views on what it means to be a Christian. Some of what Pete is reacting to in our church goes back to his Christian roots. Among the Netherlands Reformed folk they take great pride in not having any assurance of salvation. The more miserable you are, they think the more spiritual you are. In our church we go to the other extreme and think the more comfortable you are, the more spiritual you are. Maybe our state of spiritual comfort is a state of spiritual death? There many folk around here that think because they were baptized and gone the church all there lives that they are going to heaven. These people see no need for holiness of life. These people have no spiritual heart knowledge of Christ etc. Well I will close to wait to go back to church. 5:03 p.m. - 2002-01-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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