"Approaching the end of God’s grand design" - excerpts from a sermon by Jonathan Edwards

“God's end in the creation of the world consists in these two things, viz. to communicate Himself & to glorify Himself. God created the world to communicate Himself, not to receive anything. But such was the infinite goodness of God that it was His will to communicate Himself, to communicate of His own glory & happiness; & He made the world to glorify Himself, [as it is] fit that God should glorify Himself. These two things ought [not] to be separated when we speak of God's end in the creation of the world, as the assembly of divines in speaking of the chief end for which man was created have judiciously united glorifying and enjoying {God}. Indeed, God's communicating himself and glorifying {himself} ought not to be looked upon as though they were two distinct ends, but as what together makes one last end, as glorifying God and enjoying {God} make one chief end of man. For God glorifies Himself in communicating Himself, & He communicates Himself in glorifying Himself…

God's design in all the works {of creation} is to glorify His Son, & through Him to glorify Himself… God hath an infinite love to His [Son and] delights to put honor upon Him… The way in which the eternal Son of God is glorified in the creation is by communicating Himself to the creatures, not by receiving anything from the creatures…

[God will] glorify his majesty, power [and] justice before his elect that they might behold the glory and so be happy in the sight of this glory of God, and that they might give God the glory due to him on this account, and that they might be the more sensible of the worth of {their} happiness and of the wonderfulness and sovereignty of God's grace."

- Jonathan Edwards, Approaching the end of God’s grand design

http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yNDo3LndqZW8=

“You were enslaved to righteousness” – Romans 6:18; an exposition by Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” - Romans 6:18

“A better translation is, ‘You were enslaved to righteousness’; that is exactly what the Apostle says. Not only have we ‘become’ slaves; but we have been ‘enslaved to righteousness’. We were before ‘enslaved to sin’, we have now become ‘enslaved to righteousness’.
Our position, as Christians, is that we have been ‘enslaved to righteousness’. This does not mean that we admire righteousness, not that we desire to be righteous; it does not mean that we are attempting to be righteous, or attempting to practice righteousness in our daily life. It includes all these things but has a much wider content. What the Apostle says is, that we have become ‘slaves to righteousness’ – nothing less. Not ‘servants’, but ‘slaves’ of righteousness! That means that we have come under the power and control and influence of righteousness. As once we were tyrannized over and ruled by, and governed by sin, we are now, we may say, tyrannized over, and governed, and ruled by righteousness. Furthermore, this is something that is true of every one of us from the moment of our regeneration. The Apostle is talking about Christians – any Christian. From the moment we are regenerate it is true to say of us that we are no longer slaves of sin; we are the slaves of righteousness.”

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 6 : The New Man

http://www.amazon.com/Romans-Exposition-Chapter-New-Man/dp/0851511589

http://www.mlj-usa.org/mlj.nsf/(PRODUCTS-BYCODE-WEB)/MLJ.MP05R

Ash Heap Lives - Francis A. Schaeffer

“We spend most of our time & money for things that will end up in the city dump...

Do we understand that material possessions are not necessarily good in themselves even in this life? Let me give two illustrations from our early days in Switzerland...
When I first came to Europe many women worked in the field because farm machinery was scarce. Even on the larger farms, most jobs had to be done by hand…In those days, the work was hard…And I saw women out laboring with their husbands, sometimes doing the hard work of pitching the hay. I though of all the American women who did not have to do this: “My, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Swill women could be saved from this hard physical work?” But I have changed my mind. The women who worked with their husbands shoulder to shoulder during the day & then slept with them at night had one of the greatest riches in the world. Is anything worse than our modern affluent situation where the wife has no share in the real life of her husband?
Is it really true, then, that having increased material possessions is automatically good, even in this life? No. Off all people, Christians should know this because God’s Word teaches it. We must not get caught up in practical materialism…

The perspective of our lives should be that we can lay up treasure in one of two places – earth or Heaven…

Death will strip us of all material possessions we leave upon this earth. Death is a thief. Five minutes after we die, our most treasured possessions which are invested in this life are absolutely robbed from us…

We must use money with a view to what counts in eternity…Let me say with tears that as far as material possessions, time, energy & talents are concerned, all too many Bible-believing Christians live as though their entire existence is limited to this side of the grave. We cannot ignore Jesus’ statement about these two irreconcilable reference points: “You cannot serve God & money” (Matt. 6:24). Either riches in this life, or the reality of God & the future – one of them must give the overshadowing cast to our lives…”

- Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People, sermon “Ash Heap Lives”

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-uy7hbFCh8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=No+Little+People&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/2860/nm/No+Little+People

"No Little People, No Little Places" - Francis A. Schaeffer

“As a Christian considers the possibility of being the Christian glorified (a topic I discuss in True Spirituality), often his reaction is, “I am so limited. Surely it does not matter much whether I am walking as a creature glorified or not.” Or, to put it in another way, “It is wonderful to be a Christian, but I am such a small person, so limited in talents—or energy or psychological strength or knowledge— that what I do is not really important.” The Bible, however, has quite a different emphasis: with God there are no little people.

One thing that has encouraged me, as I have wrestled with such questions in my own life, is the way God used Moses’ rod, a stick of wood… Just a stick of wood—but when Moses obeyed God’s command to toss it to the ground, it became a serpent, and Moses himself fled from it. God next ordered him to take it by the tail and when he did so, it became a rod again. Then God told him to go and confront the power of Egypt and meet Pharaoh face to face with this rod in his hand. Exodus 4:20 tells us the secret of all that followed: the rod of Moses had become the rod of God…

Watch the destruction of judgment which came from a dead stick of wood that had become the rod of God. Pharaoh’s grip on the Hebrews was shaken loose, and he let the people go. But then he changed his mind and ordered his armies to pursue them. When the armies came upon them, the Hebrews were caught in a narrow place with mountains on one side of them and the sea on the other. And God said to Moses, “Lift thou up thy rod” (Ex. 14:16). What good is it to lift up a rod when one is caught in a cul-de-sac between mountains and a great body of water with the mightiest army in the world at his heels? Much good, if the rod is the rod of God. The waters divided, and the people passed through. Up to this point, the rod had been used for judgment and destruction, but now it was as much a rod of healing for the Jews as it had been a rod of judgment for the Egyptians. That which is in the hand of God can be used in either way. Later, the rod of judgment also became a rod of supply…
There was nothing in the rod itself. The rod of Moses had simply become the rod of God… The rod also brought military victory as it was held up. It was more powerful than the swords of either the Jews or their enemy (Ex. 17:9)…

Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood. “God so used a stick of wood” can be a banner cry for each of us. Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy, and psychological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God’s hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people. The problem for each of us is applying this truth to ourselves: is Francis Schaeffer the Francis Schaeffer of God?...

The people who receive praise from the Lord Jesus will not in every case be the people who hold leadership in this life. There will be many persons who were sticks of wood that stayed close to God and were quiet before Him, and were used in power by Him in a place which looks small to men.

Each Christian is to be a rod of God in the place of God for him. We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment. Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under His Lordship in the whole of life, may, by God’s grace, change the flow of our generation. And as we get on a bit in our lives, knowing how weak we are, if we look back and see we have been somewhat used of God, then we should be the rod “surprised by joy.”

Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People, No Little Places

http://static.crossway.org/excerpts/1581345186.1.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-uy7hbFCh8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=No+Little+People&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

What are the true motives for holiness? - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Romans 6:12-14

“Do you long to be holy? Do you long to have victory over sin in your mortal body? How can you do so? First, understand the doctrine. You cannot work out ‘therefore’ unless you are clear about the doctrine…Understanding the doctrine – that is the place to start. You must not say ‘I am not interested in doctrine; all I do is to look to Christ & allow Him to live His life in me’. The ‘therefore’ insists that you must understand the doctrine. Then, having understood it, you must remind yourself of it constantly. ‘Reckon’ – go on reckoning, keep on reckoning, realize it, apply it to yourself, & then draw the inevitable deductions from it…
What are the true motives for holiness? They are not just a reaction against the evil nature of sin, they are not just the desire to be happy. These are a part of it, but not the chief motive. Still less should we seek to be holy in order to make ourselves Christians; & still less merely because we are afraid of hell & the punishment of hell. Our motives must be entirely positive. Why must I not allow sin to reign in my mortal body? Because I am a man who claims to know what God’s purpose is for me. And what is God’s purpose for me? It is that all the works of the devil shall be undone in me. God made me in His own image, He made me perfect; & His whole purpose in salvation is to bring me back to that state. I believe that, I know that, I realize that; therefore I cannot allow sin to reign in my mortal body. That is my motive. I know what God’s purpose for me is, & all He has planned, & all He has brought to pass. That is my grand motive, but there are others.
I know what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for me. Knowing this doctrine, I believe that the second Person in the blessed holy Trinity left the courts of heaven & came into this world, & not only lived as a man but humbled Himself so as to come in the likeness of sinful flesh. I believe that He went to Calvary & bore my sins in His own body on the tree, & suffered the agony & the indignity of it all for me. Why did He do all that? That we might continue in sin? No! but ‘that He might redeem us from all iniquity & purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works’ (Titus 2:14). So how can we go on with sin?
These are the motives, this is the way in which I become sanctified. It is because I know these things that I will not allow sin to reign in my mortal body. I therefore go on to draw this deduction, that the very honour of God, & of the Lord Jesus Christ, is involved in this matter of my behavior…
It is the truth that sanctifies: ‘You shall know the truth & the truth shall make you free’, said our Lord to the people (John 8:32). The truth that makes us free is that which tells us who we are, what we are, what has been done for us, & how the whole honour of the family is, as it were, in our hands.”

- Martyn Llloyd-Jones, Exposition of Romans Chapter 6: The New Man

God's forgiveness - a strength against sin by Horatius Bonar

"Under law and its curse, a man works for self and Satan; under grace he works for God. It is forgiveness that sets a man working for God. He does not work in order to be forgiven, but because he has been forgiven, and the consciousness of his sin being pardoned makes him long more for its entire removal than ever he did before.
An unforgiven man cannot work. He has not the will, nor the power, nor the liberty. He is in chains. Israel in Egypt could not serve Jehovah. "Let My people go, that they may serve Me," was God's message to Pharaoh (Exodus 8:1): first liberty, then service. A forgiven man is the true worker, the true lawkeeper. He can, he will, he must work for God. He has come into contact with that part of God's character which warms his cold heart. Forgiving love constrains him. He cannot but work for Him who has removed his sins from him as far as the east is from the west. Forgiveness has made him a free man, and given him a new and most loving Master. Forgiveness, received freely from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, acts as a spring, an impulse, a stimulus of divine potency."

~ Horatius Bonar, God's Way of Holiness

http://www.dustandashes.com/230.htm

Horatius Bonar about John Bunyan’s Calvinism

"Pliable: The hearing of this is enough to ravish one's heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How shall we get to be sharers thereof?
"Christian: "The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely.”
~ John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

Thus very simply and beautifully does Bunyan put the manner of our obtaining the glory. Some would call this too free. Some would say, Here is the way made far too easy, without any preparatory alarms and repentance. But there stands John Bunyan's idea of the way of a sinner's entrance into the kingdom; and let him who can improve or correct it do so. "The Lord, the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely."
John Bunyan's soundness of doctrine is well known. His Calvinism was of a very decided kind. His views of Christ's redemption-work were very precise. His belief as to the necessity of the Holy Spirit's work was undoubted; yet he delighted to set forth the gospel in all its scriptural simplicity, unencumbered with preparatory exercises and processes intended to make the sinner "fit for receiving Christ," and fit for having the peace of the gospel dispensed to him; and never did he state that free gospel more freely, that simple gospel more simply, than when, in the manifest fulness of his heart, he wrote the above sentence, and put it into the lips of his pilgrim:-- "IF WE BE TRULY WILLING TO HAVE IT. HE WILL BESTOW IT UPON US FREELY."

Such a sentence shines like a star; yes, like a star to a tempest-tossed sinner in his night of darkness. He asks, How may I be saved? how may I be made a worshipper? how may I become a temple? how may I be taken into the royal priesthood? God's answer is not, works, and pray, and wait, and get convictions, and bring yourself under the stroke of the law; but believe and live; believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Likest in its naked simplicity to these divine utterances is that star- like sentence of the Puritan dreamer. It is but another form, in language all his own, of the concluding message of gladness dropped from heaven, as the great book of truth was about to be closed and sealed:-- "WHOSOEVER WILL, LET HIM TAKE THE WATER OF LIFE FREELY."

Too free! Too easy! Too simple! It will only make skin-deep professors! Another gospel! So say some whose idea of the gospel seems to be that of a work to be done by the sinner, not of a work which Christ has already done; whose exhortations to the inquirer are, Wait, pray, seek, wrestle, labour on, and possibly God may drop salvation into our lap; whose theory of a sinner's approach to a Saviour turns all upon the necessity of some long, laborious preliminary seekings, repentances, convictions, terrors, by which he is so humbled and broken, as to be at length in a right frame for Christ to bless him, in a right condition to be trusted with rest of soul;--whose largest grasp of the glorious gospel extends only to this, that it is good news for the qualified, for those who have been ploughed deep enough and long enough by the law.
Well: go to; go to, we say to such. Away and dispute the matter not with us, but with the Master. Ask Him why He "received sinners" at once, without preliminary work, or qualification, or preparation, or delay; why He said to the hardened profligate of Sychar, "Thou wouldst have asked, and He would have given"; to Zaccheus, "Make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house"; to the adulteress, "Neither do I condemn thee"; to the thief upon the cross, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Upbraid Him with allowing three thousand of Jerusalem sinners, at one bound, and under one single message, to pass into the kingdom, instead of keeping them "waiting at the pool," or tortured by the law into gloomy fitness for the glad tidings: express your astonishment that He should have set such an example of rearing churches out of heathen idolaters in a single day,--Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, Thessalonica, Philippi, without waiting for years before calling their members "saints," or permitting them to sit down at the table of the Lord; set up your foolishness against His wisdom, your presumption against His lowliness, your traditions against His commandments, your love of darkness against His joy in light; proclaim your amended gospel, the gospel of Galatia, "Except ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing"; but what will be the result of those amendments and restrictions on Christ's free gospel?”

- Horatius Bonar, The Rent Veil
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bonar/rentveil.xiv.html