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Thoughts on an Unequally Yoked Pursuit of Marriage

9781433513442Whether in you are in a relationship or it’s the relationships of your children, family members, or friends—here is a sobering and encouraging word from Richard Baxter on the issue of being unequally yoked.

Excerpt from The Godly Home
Directions About Marriage (Direction 6)

Do not let carnal motives persuade you to join yourself to an ungodly person. Rather, let the holy fear of God be preferred in your choice before all worldly excellence whatsoever. Do not marry a swine for a golden trough, or an ugly soul for a beautiful body. Otherwise, first, you will give cause of great suspicion that you are yourself ungodly; for those who know the misery of an unrenewed soul and the excellency of the image of God can never be indifferent whether they are joined to the godly or the ungodly. To habitually prefer things temporal before things spiritual in the predominant acts of heart and life is the certain character of a graceless soul. He who deliberately prefers riches and beauty in another, before the image and fear of God, gives a very dangerous sign of a graceless heart and will. If you value beauty and riches more than godliness, you have the surest mark that you are ungodly; if you claim not to value them, then why do you prefer them? How could you do a thing that detects your ungodliness and condemns you more clearly? Does this not show that you either do not believe the Word of God, or else that you do not love God and regard his interest? Otherwise, you would take his friends as your friends and his enemies as your enemies.

Tell me, would you marry an enemy as your own, before any change or reconciliation? I am confident that you would not. Can you so easily marry an enemy of God? If you do not know that all the ungodly and unsanctified are his enemies, you do not believe or know the Word of God, which tells you that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7–8). If you fear God, your chief end in marriage will be to have one who will be a helper to your soul and further you in the way to heaven. If you marry a person who is ungodly, either you have no such end or else you must know that you have not chosen anything wiser than if you chose water to kindle the fire or a bed of snow to keep you warm. Will an ignorant or ungodly person assist you in prayer and holy watchfulness and stir you up to the love of God and a heavenly mind? Can you so willingly lose all the spiritual benefit that you should principally desire and intend? Third, nay, instead of a helper, you will have a continual hinderer. When you should go to prayer, you will have one to pull you back or fill your mind with diversions or disquietness! When you should keep close to God in holy meditations, you will have one to cast in worldly thoughts or trouble your mind with vanity or vexation. When you should speak of God and heavenly things, you will have one to stifle such discourse and fill your ears with idle, impertinent, or worldly talk. One such hindrance so near you, in your bosom, will be worse than a thousand further off. As an ungodly heart that is next to us is our greatest hindrance, so an ungodly husband or wife is worse to us than many ungodly neighbors. If you think that you can overcome such hindrances and that your heart is so good that no such obstruction can keep it down, you show that you have a proud, arrogant heart that is prepared for a fall. If you know yourselves and the badness of your hearts, you will know that you have no need of hindrances in any holy work and that all the helps in the world are little enough, and too little, to keep your souls in the love of God.

Fourth, such an ungodly companion will be to you a continual temptation to sin. Instead of stirring you up to good, you will have one to stir you up to evil—passion or discontent or covetousness or pride or revenge or sensuality. Can you not sin enough without such a tempter? Fifth, what a continual grief will it be to you, if you are a believer, to have a child of the Devil in your bosom and to think how far you must be separated at death! And in what torments those must lie forever who are so dear unto you you know! Sixth, yea, such companions will be incapable of the principal part of your love. You may love them as husbands or wives, but you cannot love them as saints and members of Christ. And how great an absence this will be in your love those know who know what this holy love is.

February 2, 2010 | Posted in: Books,Marriage,Sin & Temptation | Author: Crossway Staff @ 9:00 am | (5) Comments »

Posted in Books, Marriage, Sin & Temptation | 5 Comments »

Overcoming Sin and Temptation on Trackback Thursday

1581346492Today’s trackback title is Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen, ED. by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor. John Owen’s three classic works on sin and temptation are profoundly helpful to any believer who seeks to become more like Jesus Christ.

“Do you mortify;
do you make it your daily work;
be always at it while you live;
cease not a day from this work;
be killing sin or it will be killing you.” (pp. 50)

Here’s a reminder of how Trackback Thursday works: Simply link to the blog post from your blog, leave a comment on Crossway’s Facebook Page, or re-tweet Trackback Thursday on Twitter @Crosswaybooks. Winners are picked on Friday morning.

November 19, 2009 | Posted in: Books,Sin & Temptation | Author: Crossway Staff @ 9:24 am | (8) Comments »

Posted in Books, Sin & Temptation | 8 Comments »

Deception and Confusion: The Serpent Spoke

9781433501791From Vern Poythress’ New Release, In the Beginning Was the Word: Language, A God-Centered Approach

An Excerpt from “The Fall Into Sin” (pp. 104-105).
The events leading to the fall did not really begin with Adam and Eve, but with the serpent. The serpent said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1). The fall began with language. It began with an insidious question, framed in language that the woman understood. Language played a central role in the fall, and we may suspect that it continues to play a central role in the ongoing effects of the fall.

Serpents do not normally talk. Among God’s earthly creatures, human beings alone have the capacity for complex, fully articulate language. Yet this particular serpent did talk. He began with a question that concealed its spirit of attack un- derneath a seemingly innocent request for clarification. But his next utterance unveiled his bold opposition to God: “You will not surely die.”

Clearly this was no ordinary serpent. Adam and Eve themselves could have seen that, even without any further information. It should be no surprise, then, that the Bible later on lifts the veil a little more to indicate that behind the literal snake stood a more crafty, bold, and determined opponent, namely, Satan, a powerful spirit, a fallen, rebellious archangel, who is denominated “that ancient serpent” (Rev. 12:9; 20:2; see Isa. 27:1). He is “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). His deceit began in the garden. But, as the book of Revelation indicates, it continues to this day. So it is worthwhile to think about the deceitful use of language in this one case, in order to have a framework for understanding the deceitful use of language throughout history.

Satan already attempted to deceive Eve in his first question, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1). He insinuated that God could withhold from Eve what was good. The deceit then escalated when Satan directly contradicted God’s earlier statement by saying, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4; contradicting 2:17).

Rebellion against God involves the use of language, and the use of the mind, to undermine and obscure knowledge of key truths about humanity, about the world (the tree), and also about God. The denial concerning the effect of eating from the tree is a denial about future events in the world. But it is also indirectly a denial concerning God. The serpent seems to concede that Eve is correct about what God said, but insists that God is lying. The serpent implies that either God does not have the power or he does not have the willingness to bring the penalty of death. Probably, suggests the serpent, God never intended to execute the death penalty in the first place, but is merely producing a vain threat in order jealously to keep some benefits for himself alone, and to keep Eve from enjoying them. Maybe the serpent’s speech is all the more effective because he does not directly blurt out all his conclusions and all his ideas about God, but allows Eve to follow the trail of insinuations herself, and to arrive at her own conclusions.

Learn more about In the Beginning Was the Word.

November 18, 2009 | Posted in: Books,Sin & Temptation | Author: Crossway Staff @ 7:22 am | 0 Comments »

Posted in Books, Sin & Temptation | No Comments »

Your Problem and the Answer to Your Problem

9781433501203Inevitably we will face seasons of trial, disappointment, and conflict. We will see it in our personal lives and around the world. The tragedy is when we seek the solution while focusing directly on ourselves.

In The Gospel in Genesis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminds us that it all starts with God. There are certain truths that the Bible tells us are absolute essentials if we are to understand ourselves and the world in which we live.

The following is an excerpt from the chapter “The Message of the Bible”:

And it is because of this that I keep preaching. It is because I believe that all who die in their sins not only go to judgment but go to hell that I keep proclaiming the message. If I believed that when we all die, that is just the end of it, that our bodies just dissolve and become part of the earth and that is all, then there would be no need of a gospel. But “it is appointed unto men”—all men—“once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Death is not the end. We go on, and we go on for all eternity. The judgment is announced; judgment is pronounced.

But, thank God, man is fallen, condemned, miserable, and helpless, but God intervenes! God comes into the wreckage. God visits man and calls him by name and addresses him. God, even at the moment of rebellion, tells man that he has a way to rescue him and to redeem him: “It [the seed of the woman] shall bruise thy [the serpent’s] head” (Genesis 3:15). The serpent, the archenemy, the power with which we cannot deal, the god of this world who is too strong for us, can only be mastered by one, and he has come—the seed of the woman, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- soever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ, the Son of God, came into this world, took on our human nature, entered into our very situation, and smote our enemy. He conquered the foe and can set us free. He received judg- ment for us. He bore our sins and their punishment in his own body on a cruel cross. God dealt with him there and pardons us, and our enemy is conquered. So the way to paradise is open, and it is open for you.

Your misery, all your problems, all your needs, arise from the fact of sin. They arise because you are in this terrible position face-to-face with God. That is the cause of all ill. And there is but one solution to the problem, the solution that God himself has provided in the person of his only begotten Son. “. . . that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” And that life begins here and now—a knowledge of God, assurance that you are right with God, that God will bless you and smile upon you and give you what you need, that he will strengthen you and enable you to overcome your enemies, that he will take you through death and announce in the judgment that you are already pardoned and forgiven, that he will say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant . . . inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:21, 34).

My dear friend, that is your problem, and that is the answer to your problem. Believe it. Accept it here and now. Go to that great God, almighty beyond conception and understanding, who existed from eternity and who made all out of nothing. Cast yourself before him. Acknowledge your ignorant, arrogant sinning against him, and thank him for his eternal love in sending his only Son to rescue you and to redeem you by dying for you on Calvary’s hill, and ask him to give you life anew. And he will. I say that on the authority of his only Son who stated, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). He cast out man in sin and rebellion. Go back to him in repentance, and he will not cast you out. He will receive you and bless you.

October 16, 2009 | Posted in: Books,Death of Christ,Repentance,Sin & Temptation | Author: Crossway Staff @ 7:24 am | 1 Comment »

Posted in Books, Death of Christ, Repentance, Sin & Temptation | 1 Comment »

Mohler calls Worldliness “Powerhouse of a Book”

Dr. Mohler’s review in the latest Southern Seminary Magazine (Spring 2009, Vol. 77, No.1):

Worldliness — Honest Talk About Seduction
By R. ALBERT MOHLER JR.

My friend C. J. Mahaney and a few of his friends have written a powerhouse of a book in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World (Crossway). In its essence, worldliness is “a love for the fallen world,” Mahaney explains. “It’s loving the values and pursuits of the world that stand opposed to God.” More emphatically, it is “to gratify and exalt oneself to the exclusion of God.”

Just in case anyone might miss how to apply this, Mahaney and his team go right after major temptations inherent in worldliness. Craig Cabaniss writes about worldliness and media with good insight. To no surprise, Bob Kauflin goes after music, bringing the same theological insights he brings to his music ministry. Take this zinger, for example: Kauflin warns that a sign that music has become an idol is when our passion for Christ has waned but our passion for music has not.

Dave Harvey writes about worldliness and “our stuff.” (Loved his warning about “virtual giving.”) Mahaney then turns to worldliness and dress, offering good and much needed advice, and Jeff Purswell concludes by talking about the Christian’s right understanding of the world. We are not here by accident.

Worldliness offers other good features, including a foreword by John Piper. Most importantly, the book is Gospel-centered and avoids both legalism and antinomianism. Read it, savor it, ponder it… and then give a copy to someone else.

Read Chapter 1 – “Is This Verse in Your Bible?”:

April 25, 2009 | Posted in: Books,Pursuit of Holiness,Reviews,Sanctification/Growth,Sin & Temptation | Author: James Kinnard @ 11:28 am | 1 Comment »

Posted in Books, Pursuit of Holiness, Reviews, Sanctification/Growth, Sin & Temptation | 1 Comment »