Kevin Stilley

  • Home
  • Blog Posts
  • On the Air
  • Quotes
  • Site Archive

December 5, 2013 by kevinstilley

Spiritual Growth Book Recommendations

In the book Teknon and the Champion Warriors, Brent Sapp recommends the following books on Spiritual Growth. What do you think of his recommendations? What would you add?

Experiencing God, by Henry Blackaby and Claude King
The Disciplines of a Godly Man, by R. Kent Hughes
Ecclesiastes audio series by Tommy Nelson
A Godward Life, by John Piper
A Godward Life Book Two, by John Piper
How To Read the Bible For All Its Worth, by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, by Charles Swindoll

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Spiritual Growth Tagged With: Book Recommendation, discipleship, Spiritual Growth

October 25, 2013 by kevinstilley

The Backslider in Heart : Discussion Questions

LECTURES ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION
by The Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY
LECTURE XXI
THE BACKSLIDER IN HEART

[These discussion questions relate to Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion: Lecture 21 – “Backsliders In Heart”. The full text for Charles Finney’s “Backsliders in Heart” is included below the following discussion questions. When page numbers are mentioned in the discussion questions they refer to the edition of the text published by Alethea in Heart, isbn. 1932370471]

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. When I was a child it was common for me to hear of “backsliding” or of “carnal Christianity. I do not hear that language much today. Do you think that this represents a shift in theology and/or praxis?

2. Finney says that “It [backsliding] does not consist in the subsidence of highly excited religious emotions. The subsidence of religious feeling may be an evidence of a backslidden heart, but it does not consist in the cooling off of religious feeling.” What role do you think that emotions play in vital Christianity?

3. Finney lists four things that he describes as backsliding. (p. 406) How do you feel about this predication? How common are the things he mentions?

4. How do you recognize in your own life when you are observing the forms of religion but have lost the power of godliness?

5. In section III, Finney lists all of the following as indicators of a backslidden condition: formality in religious exercises, lack of religious enjoyment, finding religious duties a burden, an ungoverned temper, a spirit of uncharitablenes, a spirit of fault-finding that impugns the motives of others, a want of interest in God’s Word, a want of interest in secret prayer, a want of interest in the conversion of souls and in efforts to promote revivals of religion, lack of interest in missions, the loss of interest in benevolent enterprises, the loss of interest in truly spiritual conversation, the loss of interest in socializing with other Christians, the loss of interest in the question of sanctification, the loss of interest in those newly converted, an uncharitable state of mind in regard to professed converts, the want of the spirit of prayer, ungodly prayers, and selfish prayers, absence from prayer meetings, neglecting family prayer, secret prayer is regarded more as a duty than as a privilege, being given to worldly amusements, spiritual blindness, religious apathy, a disposition to gratify the appetites, passions and propensities, a seared conscience, loose moral principles, prevalence of the fear of man, a rigid attitude in forms, ceremonies and nonessentials, objections measures that are evidently blessed of God. Do you think this is a good list for self-reflection? Do you agree with all that is on his list? Do you think there are other items that could be added to this list?

6. What items on this list did you find particularly interesting? Did you agree? Stongly agree? Disagree? Strongly disagree? Were you moved, motivated, stimulated, aggravated?

7. Finney claims that those whose heart is devoted to God will enjoy serving him. Is he correct? He says that “whenever you lose your religious enjoyment, or the enjoyment of serving God, you may know that you are not serving Him aright.” What is the right course of action if you find service to God burdensome? Is enjoyment and pain mutually exclusive?

8. Finney claims that God “does not accept the service of bondsmen, who serve Him because they must. He accepts none but a love service.” Are there any biblical texts that deal with his issue?

9. Have you ever heard anyone use their “bad temper” as an excuse for bad action? What does Finney say about an ungoverned temper? Do you agree with him? Where does personality and temperament fit into a discussion of spirituality? Do introverts run the risk of being labeled as backslidden or unspiritual by Finney or in the modern church?

10. What additional considerations or qualifications might you add to other items on his list?

11. In section IV Finney describes the consequences of a backslidden heart. What is the distinction he is making between the items on this list and the evidences of a backslidden heart in Section III?

12. What do you think of Finney’s recipe for recovery from backsliding? [Section V]

13. Finney says that you are not in a “justified state” if you are backslidden. What does he mean by that? Is this an indicator of his theology? What do you think of this claim?

14. What is the connection between Finney’s discussion of “backsliding” and the churches responsibility to disciple believers?

15. Finney does not cite many scriptural texts to support his claims. Why? What do you think of this absence?

____________

LECTURE XXI – BACKSLIDERS IN HEART – TEXT:

The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways. – Proverbs 14:14.

I cannot conclude this course of lectures, without warning converts against backsliding. In discussing this subject, I will show:

I. What backsliding in heart is not.

II. What backsliding in heart is.

III. What are evidences of backsliding in heart.

IV. What are consequences of backsliding in heart.

V. How to recover from this state.

I. WHAT A BACKSLIDING HEART IS NOT.

1. It does not consist in the subsidence of highly excited religious emotions. The subsidence of religious feeling may be an evidence of a backslidden heart, but it does not consist in the cooling off of religious feeling.

II. WHAT BACKSLIDING IN HEART IS.

1. It consists in taking back that consecration to God and His service, that constitutes true conversion.

2. It is the leaving, by a Christian, of his first love.

3. It consists in the Christian withdrawing himself from that state of entire and universal devotion to God, which constitutes true religion, and coming again under the control of a self-pleasing spirit.

4. The text implies that there may be a backslidden heart, when the forms of religion and obedience to God are maintained. As we know from consciousness that men perform the same, or similar, acts from widely different, and often from opposite, motives, we are certain that men may keep up all the outward forms and appearances of religion, when in fact, they are backslidden in heart. No doubt the most intense selfishness often takes on a religious type, and there are many considerations that might lead a backslider in heart to keep up the forms, while he had lost the power of godliness in his soul.

III. WHAT ARE EVIDENCES OF A BACKSLIDDEN HEART.

1. Manifest formality in religious exercises. A stereotyped, formal way of saying and doing things, that is clearly the result of habit, rather than the outgushing of the religious life. This formality will be emotionless and cold as an iceberg, and will evince a total want of earnestness in the performance of religious duty. In prayer and in religious exercises the backslider in heart will pray or praise, or confess, or give thanks with his lips, so that all can hear him, perhaps, but in such a way that no one can feel him. Such a formality would be impossible where there existed a present, living faith and love, and religious zeal.

2. A want of religious enjoyment is evidence of a backslidden heart. We always enjoy the saying and doing of those things that please those whom we most love; furthermore, when the heart is not backslidden, communion with God is kept up, and therefore all religious duties are not only performed with pleasure, but the communion with God involved in them is a source of rich and continual enjoyment. If we do not enjoy the service of God, it is because we do not truly serve Him. If we love Him supremely, it is impossible that we should not enjoy His service at every step. Always remember then, whenever you lose your religious enjoyment, or the enjoyment of serving God, you may know that you are not serving Him aright.

3. Religious bondage is another evidence of a backslidden heart. God has no slaves. He does not accept the service of bondsmen, who serve Him because they must. He accepts none but a love service. A backslider in heart finds his religious duties a burden to him. He has promised to serve the Lord. He dare not wholly break off from the form of service, and he tries to be dutiful, while he has no heart in prayer, in praise, in worship, or in any of those exercises which are so spontaneous and delightful, where there is true love to God. The backslider in heart is often like a dutiful, but unloving wife. She tries to do her duty to her husband, but fails utterly because she does not love him. Her painstaking to please her husband is constrained, not the spontaneous outburst of a loving heart; and her relationship and her duties become the burden of her life. She goes about complaining of the weight of care that is upon her, and will not be likely to advise young ladies to marry. She is committed for life, and must therefore perform the duties of married life, but it is such a bondage! Just so with religious bondage. The professor must perform his duty. He drags painfully about it, and you will hear him naturally sing backslider’s hymns:

Reason I hear, her counsels weigh, And all her words approve And yet I find it hard to obey, And harder still, to love.

4. An ungoverned temper. While the heart is full of love, the temper will naturally be chastened and sweet, or at any rate, the will keep it under, and not suffer it to break out in outrageous abuse, or if at any time it should so far escape from the control of the will as to break loose in hateful words, it will soon be brought under, and by no means suffered to take control and manifest itself to the annoyance of others. Especially will a loving heart confess and break down, if at any time bad temper gets the control.

Whenever, therefore, there is an irritable, uncontrolled temper allowed to manifest itself to those around, you may know there is a backslidden heart.

5. A spirit of uncharitableness is evidence of a backslidden heart. By this, I mean a want of that disposition that puts the best construction upon every one’s conduct that can be reasonable – a want of confidence in the good intentions and professions of others. We naturally credit the good professions of those whom we love. We naturally attribute to them right motives, and put the best allowable construction upon their words and deeds. Where there is a want of this there is evidence conclusive of a backslidden or unloving heart.

6. A censorious spirit is conclusive evidence of a backslidden heart. This is a spirit of fault-finding, of impugning the motives of others, when their conduct admits of a charitable construction. It is a disposition to fasten blame upon others, and judge them harshly. It is a spirit of distrust of Christian character and profession. It is a state of mind that reveals itself in harsh judgments, harsh sayings, and the manifestation of uncomfortable feelings toward individuals. This state of mind is entirely incompatible with a loving heart, and whenever a censorious spirit is manifested by a professor of religion, you may know there is a backslidden heart.

7. A want of interest in God’s Word, is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. Perhaps nothing more conclusively proves that a professor has a backslidden heart, than his losing his interest in the Bible. While the heart is full of love, no book in the world is so precious as the Bible. But when the love. is gone, the Bible becomes not only uninteresting but often repulsive. There is no faith to accept its promises, but conviction enough left to dread its threatening. But in general the backslider in heart is apathetic as to the Bible. He does not read it much, and when he does read it, he has not interest enough to understand it. Its pages become dark and uninteresting, and therefore it is neglected.

8. A want of interest in secret prayer is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. Young Christian, if you find yourself losing your interest in the Bible and in secret prayer, stop short, return to God, and give yourself no rest, till you enjoy the light of His countenance. If you feel disinclined to pray, or to read your Bible; if when you pray and read your Bible, you have no heart; if you are inclined to make your secret devotions short, or are easily induced to neglect them; or if your thoughts, affections, and emotions wander, you may know that you are a backslider in heart, and your first business is to be broken down before God, and to see that your love and zeal are renewed.

9. A want of interest in the conversion of souls and in efforts to promote revivals of religion. This of course reveals a backslidden heart. There is nothing in which a loving heart takes more interest than in the conversion of souls – in revivals of religion, and in efforts to promote them. 83 10. A want of interest in published accounts or narratives of revivals of religion, is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. While one retains his interest in the conversion of souls, and in revivals of religion he will, of course, be interested in all accounts of revivals of religion anywhere. If you find yourself, therefore, disinclined to read such accounts, or find yourself not interested in them, take it for granted that you are backslidden in heart.

11. The same is true of missions, and missionary work and operations. If you lose your interest in the work, and in the conversion of the heathen, and do not delight to read and hear of the success of missions, you may know that you are backslidden in heart.

12. The loss of interest in benevolent enterprises generally is an evidence of a backslidden heart. I say, “the loss of interest,” for surely, if you were ever converted to Christ, you have had an interest in all benevolent enterprises that came within your knowledge. Religion consists in disinterested benevolence. Of course, a converted soul takes the deepest interest in all benevolent efforts to reform and save mankind; in good government, in Christian education, in the cause of temperance, in the abolition of slavery, in provision for the needs of the poor, and in short, in every good word and work. Just in proportion as you have lost your interest in these, you have evidence that you are backslidden in heart.

13. The loss of interest in truly spiritual conversation is another evidence of a backslidden heart. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). This our Lord Jesus Christ announced as a law of our nature. No conversation is so sweet to a truly loving heart, as that which relates to Christ, and to our living Christian experience. If you find yourself losing interest in conversing on heart religion, and of the various and wonderful experiences of Christians, if you have known what the true love of God is, you have fallen from it, and are a backslider in heart.

14. A loss of interest in the conversation and society of highly spiritual people, is an evidence of a backslidden heart. We take the greatest delight in the society of those who are most interested in the things that are most dear to us. Hence, a loving Christian heart will always seek the society of those who are most spiritually minded, and whose conversation is most evangelical and spiritual. If you find yourself wanting in this respect, then know for certain that you are backslidden in heart.

15. The loss of interest in the question of sanctification is an evidence of a backslidden heart. I say again, the loss of interest, for, if you ever truly knew the love of God, you must have had a great interest in the question of entire consecration to God, or of entire sanctification. If you are a Christian, you have felt that sin was an abomination to your soul. You have had inexpressible longings to be rid of it forever, and everything that could throw light upon that question of agonizing importance was most intensely interesting to you. If this question has been dismissed, and you no longer take an interest in it, it is because you are backslidden in heart.

16. The loss of interest in those newly converted, is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. The Psalmist says: “They that fear Thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in Thy word” (Psalm 119:74).

This he puts into the mouth of a convert, and who does not know that this is true? There is joy in the presence of the angels of God, over one sinner that repenteth, and is there not joy among the saints on earth, over those that come to Christ, and are as babes newly born into the Kingdom? Show me a professor of religion who does not manifest an absorbing interest in converts to Christ, and I will show you a backslider in heart, and a hypocrite; he professes religion, but has none.

17. An uncharitable state of mind in regard to professed converts, is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. Charity, or love, “believeth all things, hopeth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7), is very ready to judge kindly and favorably of those who profess to be converted to Christ, and will naturally watch over them with interest, pray for them, instruct them, and have as much confidence in them as it is reasonable to have. A disposition, therefore, to pick at, criticize, and censure them, is an evidence of a backslidden heart.

18. The want of the spirit of prayer is evidence of a backslidden heart.

While the love of Christ remains fresh in the soul, the indwelling Spirit of God will reveal Himself as the Spirit of grace and supplication. He will beget strong desires in the soul for the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of saints. He will often make intercessions in them, with great longings, strong crying and tears, and with groanings that cannot he uttered in words, for those things that are according to the will of God. Or, to express it in Scripture language, according to Paul: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26, 27). If the spirit of prayer departs, it is a sure indication of a backslidden heart, for while the first love of a Christian continues he is sure to be drawn by the Holy Spirit to wrestle much in prayer.

19. A backslidden heart often reveals itself by the manner in which people pray. For example, praying as if in a state of self-condemnation, or very much like a convicted sinner, is an evidence of a backslidden heart. Such a person will reveal the fact, that he is not at peace with God. His confessions and self-accusations will show to others what perhaps he does not well understand himself. His manner of praying will reveal the fact that he has not communion with God; that instead of being filled with faith and love, he is more or less convicted of sin, and conscious that he is not in a state of acceptance with God. He will naturally pray more like a convicted sinner than like a Christian. It will be seen by his prayer that he is not in a state of Christian liberty – that he is having a Seventh of Romans experience, instead of that which is described in the Eighth.

20. A backslidden heart will further reveal itself in praying almost exclusively for self, and for those friends that are regarded almost as parts of self. It is often very striking and even shocking to attend a backsliders’ prayer meeting, and I am very sorry to say that many prayer meetings of the Church are little else. Their prayers are timid and hesitating, and reveal the fact that they have little or no faith. Instead of surrounding the Throne of Grace and pouring their hearts out for a blessing on those around them, they have to be urged up to duty, to “take up their cross.” Their hearts do not, will not, spontaneously gush out to God in prayer. They have very little concern for others, and when they do, as they say, “take up their cross and do their duty,” and pretend to lead in prayer, it will be observed that they pray just like a company of convicted sinners, almost altogether for themselves. They will pray for that which, should they obtain it, would be religion, just as a convicted sinner would pray for a new heart; and the fact that they pray for religion as they do, manifests that they have none, in their present state of mind. Ask them to pray for the conversion of sinners, and they will either wholly forget to do so, or just mention sinners in such a way as will show that they have no heart to pray for them.

I have known professed Christian parents to get into such a state that they had no heart to pray for the conversion of their own children, even when those children were under conviction. They would keep up family prayer, and attend a weekly prayer meeting, but would never get out of the rut of praying round and round for themselves. A few years since I was laboring in a revival in a Presbyterian Church. At the close of the evening sermon I found that the daughter of one of the elders of the Church was in great distress of mind. I observed that her convictions were very deep. We had been holding a meeting with inquirers in the vestry, and I had just dismissed the inquirers, when this young lady came to me in great agitation and begged me to pray for her. The people had mostly gone, except a few who were waiting in the body of the church for those friends who had attended the meeting of inquiry. I called the father of this young lady into the vestry that he might see the very anxious state of his daughter’s mind.

After a short personal conversation with her in the presence of her father, I called on him to pray for her, and said that I would follow him, and I urged her to give her heart to Christ. We all knelt, and he went through with his prayer, kneeling by the side of his sobbing daughter, without ever mentioning her case. His prayer revealed that he had no more religion than she had, and that he was very much in her state of mind – under an awful sense of condemnation. He had kept up the appearance of religion. As an elder of the Church, he was obliged to keep up appearances. He had gone round and round upon the treadmill of his duties, while his heart was utterly backslidden. It is often almost nauseating to attend a prayer meeting of the backslidden in heart. They will go round, round, one after the other, in reality praying for their own conversion. They do not so express it, but that is the real import of their prayer. They could not render it more evident that they are backsliders in heart.

21. Absence from stated prayer meetings for slight reasons, is a sure indication of a backslidden heart. No meeting is more interesting to Christians than the prayer meeting, and while they have any heart to pray, they will not be absent from prayer meeting unless prevented from attending by the providence of God. If a call from a friend at the hour of meeting can prevent their attendance, unless the call is made under very peculiar circumstances, it is strong evidence that they do not wish to attend, and hence, that they are backsliders in heart. A call at such a time would not prevent their attending a wedding, a party, a picnic, or an amusing lecture. The fact is, it is hypocrisy for them to pretend that they really want to go, while they can be kept away for slight reasons.

22. The same is true of the neglect of family prayer, for slight reasons.

While the heart is engaged in religion, Christians will not readily omit family devotions, and whenever they are ready to find an excuse for the omission, it is a sure evidence that they are backslidden in heart.

23. When secret prayer is regarded more as a duty than as a privilege, it is because the heart is backslidden. It has always appeared to me almost ridiculous, to hear Christians speak of prayer as a “duty.” It is one of the greatest of earthly privileges. What should we think of a child coming to its parent for its dinner, not because it is hungry, but as a duty. How would it strike us to hear a beggar speak of the “duty” of asking alms of us. It is an infinite privilege to be allowed to come to God, and ask for the supply of all our wants. But to pray because we must, rather than because we may, seems unnatural. To ask for what we want, and because we want it, and because God has encouraged us to ask, and has promised to answer our request, is natural and reasonable. But to pray as a duty and as if we were obliging God by our prayer, is quite ridiculous, and is a certain indication of a backslidden heart.

24. Pleading for worldly amusements is also an indication of a backslidden heart. The most grateful amusements possible, to a truly spiritual mind, are those engagements that bring the soul into the most direct communion with God. While the heart is full of love and faith, an hour, or an evening, spent alone in communion with God, is more delightful than all the amusements which the world can offer. A loving heart is jealous of everything that will break up or interfere with its communion with God.

For mere worldly amusements it has no relish. When the soul does not find more delight in God than in all worldly things, the heart is sadly backslidden.

25. Spiritual blindness is another evidence of a backslidden heart. While the eye is single the whole body will be full of spiritual light, but if the eye be evil (which means a backslidden heart) the whole body will be full of darkness.

Spiritual blindness reveals itself in a want of interest in God’s Word, and in religious truth generally. It will also manifest a want of spiritual discrimination, and will be easily imposed upon by the insinuations of Satan. A backslidden heart will lead to the adoption of lax principles of morality. It does not discern the spirituality of God’s law, and of His requirements generally. When this spiritual blindness is manifest it is a sure indication that the heart is backslidden.

26. Religious apathy, with worldly wakefulness and sensibility, is a sure indication of a backslidden heart. We sometimes see persons who feel deeply and quickly on worldly subjects, but who cannot be made to feel deeply on religious subjects. This clearly indicates a backslidden state of mind.

27. A self-indulgent spirit is a sure indication of a backslidden heart. By self-indulgence, I mean a disposition to gratify the appetites, passions, and propensities, to “fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind”

(Ephesians 2:3).

This, in the Bible, is represented as a state of spiritual death. I am satisfied that the most common occasion of backsliding in heart is to be found in the clamor for indulgence of the various appetites and propensities. The appetite for food is frequently, and perhaps more frequently than any other, the occasion of backsliding. Few Christians, I fear, apprehend any danger in this direction. God’s injunction is: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Christians forget this, and eat and drink to please themselves, consulting their appetites instead of the laws of life and health. More persons are ensnared by their tables than the Church is aware of. The table is a snare of death to multitudes that no man can number. A great many people who avoid alcoholic drinks altogether, will indulge in tea and coffee, and even tobacco, and in food that, both in quantity and quality, violates every law of health. They seem to have no other law than that of appetite, and this they so deprave by abuse that, to indulge it, is to ruin body and soul together. Show me a gluttonous professor, and I will show you a backslider.

28. A seared conscience is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. While the soul is wakeful and loving, the conscience is as tender as the apple of the eye. But when the heart is backslidden, the conscience is silent and seared, on many subjects. Such a person will tell you that he is not violating his conscience, in eating or drinking, or in self-indulgence of any kind. You will find a backslider has but little conscience. The same will very generally be true in regard to sins of omission. Multitudes of duties may be neglected and a seared conscience will remain silent. Where conscience is not awake, the heart is surely backslidden.

29. Loose moral principles are a sure indication of a backslidden heart. A backslider in heart will write letters on the Sabbath, engage in secular reading, and in much worldly conversation. In business, such a person will take little advantages, play off business tricks, and conform to the habits of worldly business men in the transaction of business; he will be guilty of deception and misrepresentation in making bargains, will demand exorbitant interest, and take advantage of the necessities of his fellow-men.

30. Prevalence of the fear of man is an evidence of a backslidden heart.

While the heart is full of the love of God, God is feared, and not man. A desire for the applause of men is kept down, and it is enough to please God, whether men are pleased or displeased. But when the love of God is abated, “the fear of man,” that “bringeth a snare” (Proverbs 29:25), gets possession of the backslider. To please man rather than God, is then his aim. In such a state he will sooner offend God than man.

31. A sticklish ness about forms, ceremonies, and nonessentials, gives evidence of a backslidden heart. A loving heart is particular only about the substance and power of religion, and will not stickle about its forms.

32. A captiousness about measures in promoting revivals of religion, is a sure evidence of a backslidden heart. Where the heart is fully set upon the conversion of sinners and the sanctification of believers, it will naturally approach the subject in the most direct manner, and by means in the highest degree calculated to accomplish the end. It will not object to, nor stumble at, measures that are evidently blessed of God, but will exert the utmost sagacity in devising the most suitable means to accomplish the great end on which the heart is set.

IV. THE CONSEQUENCES OF BACKSLIDING IN HEART.

The text says, that “the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.”

1. He shall be filled with his own works. But these are dead works, they are not works of faith and love, which are acceptable to God, but are the filthy rags of his own righteousness. If they are performed as religious services, they are but loathsome hypocrisy, and an abomination to God; there is no heart in them. To such a person God says: “Who hath required this at your hand?” (Isaiah 1:12). “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). “I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you” (John 5:42).

2. He shall be filled with his own feelings. Instead of that sweet peace and rest, and joy in the Holy Ghost, that he once experienced, he will find himself in a state of unrest, dissatisfied with himself and everybody else, his feelings often painful, humiliating, and as unpleasant and unlovely as can be well conceived. It is often very trying to live with backsliders. They are often peevish, censorious, and irritating, in all their ways. They have forsaken God, and in their feelings there is more of hell than of heaven.

3. They will be filled with their own prejudices. Their willingness to know and do the truth has gone. They will very naturally commit themselves against any truth that bears hardly upon a self-indulgent spirit. They will endeavor to justify themselves, will neither read nor hear that which will rebuke their backslidden state, and they will become deeply prejudiced against every one that shall cross their path, who shall reprove them, accounting him as an enemy. They hedge themselves in, and shut their eyes against the light; stand on the defensive, and criticize everything that would search them out.

4. A backslider in heart will be filled with his own enmities. He will chafe in almost every relation of life, will allow himself to be vexed, and to get into such relations with some persons, and perhaps with many, that he cannot pray for them honestly, and can hardly treat them with common civility. This is an almost certain result of a backslidden heart.

5. The backslider in heart will be full of his own mistakes. He is not walking with God. He has fallen out of the Divine order. He is not led by the Spirit, but is walking in spiritual darkness. In this state he is sure to fall into many and grievous mistakes, and may get entangled in such a way as to mar his happiness, and, perhaps, destroy his usefulness for life.

Mistakes in business, mistakes in forming new relations in life, mistakes in using his time, his tongue, his money, his influence; indeed, all will go wrong with him as long as he remains in a backslidden state.

6. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own lustings. His appetites and passions, which had been kept under, have now resumed their control, and having been so long suppressed, they will seem to avenge themselves by becoming more clamorous and despotic than ever.

The animal appetites and passions will burst forth, to the astonishment of the backslider, and he will probably find himself more under their influence and more enslaved by them than ever before.

7. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own words. While in that state, he will not, and cannot, control his tongue. It will prove itself to be an unruly member, full of deadly poison. By his words he will involve himself in many difficulties and perplexities, from which he can never extricate himself until he comes back to God.

8. He will be full of his own trials. Instead of keeping out of temptation, he will run right into it. He will bring upon himself multitudes of trials that he never would have had, had he not departed from God. He will complain of his trials, but yet will constantly multiply them. A backslider feels his trials keenly, but, while he complains of being so tried by everything around him, he is constantly aggravating them, and, being the author of them, he seems industrious to bring them upon himself like an avalanche.

9. The backslider in heart shall be full of his own folly. Having rejected the Divine guidance, he will evidently fall into the depths of his own foolishness. He will inevitably say and do multitudes of foolish and ridiculous things. Being a professor of religion, these things will be all the more noticed, and of course bring him all the more into ridicule and contempt. A backslider is, indeed, the most foolish person in the world.

Having experimental knowledge of the true way of life, he has the infinite folly to abandon it. Knowing the fountain of living waters, he has forsaken it, and “hewed out to himself cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Having been guilty of this infinite folly, the whole course of his backslidden life must be that of a fool, in the Bible sense of the term.

10. The backslider in heart will be full of his own troubles. God is against him, and he is against himself. He is not at peace with God, with himself, with the Church, nor with the world. He has no inward rest. Conscience condemns him. God condemns him. All that know his state condemn him.

“There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21). There is no position in time or space in which he can be at rest.

11. The backslider in heart will be full of his own cares. He has turned back to selfishness. He counts himself and his possessions as his own. He has everything to care for. He will not hold himself and his possessions as belonging to God, and lay aside the responsibility of taking care of himself and all that he possesses. He does not, will not, cast his cares upon the Lord, but undertakes to manage everything for himself, and in his own wisdom, and for his own ends. Consequently, his cares will be multiplied, and come upon him like a deluge.

12. The backslider in heart will be full of his own perplexities. Having forsaken God, having fallen into the darkness of his own folly, he will be filled with perplexities and doubts in regard to what course he shall pursue to accomplish his selfish ends. He is not walking with, but contrary to God. Hence, the providence of God will constantly cross his path, and baffle all his schemes. God will frown darkness upon his path, and take pains to confound his projects, and blow his schemes to the winds.

13. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own anxieties. He will be anxious about himself, about his business, about his reputation, about everything. He has taken all these things out of the hands of God, and claims them and treats them as his own. Hence, having faith in God no longer, and being unable to control events, he must of necessity be filled with anxieties with regard to the future. These anxieties are the inevitable result of his madness and folly in forsaking God.

14. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own disappointments.

Having forsaken God, and taken the attitude of self-will, God will inevitably disappoint him as he pursues his selfish ends. He will frame his ways to please himself, without consulting God. Of course God will frame his ways so as to disappoint him. Determined to have his own way, he will be greatly disappointed if his plans are frustrated; yet the certain course of events under the government of God must of necessity bring him a series of disappointments.

15. The backslider in heart must be full of his own losses. He regards his possessions as his own, his time as his own, his influence as his own, his reputation as his own. The loss of any of these, he accounts as his own loss. Having forsaken God, and being unable to control the events upon which the continuance of those things is conditioned, he will find himself suffering losses on every side. He loses his peace. He loses his property.

He loses much of his time. He loses his Christian reputation. He loses his Christian influence, and if he persists he loses his soul.

16. The backslider in heart will be full of his own crosses. All religious duty will be irksome, and, therefore, a cross to him. His state of mind will make multitudes of things crosses that in a Christian state of mind would have been pleasant in a high degree. Having lost all heart in religion, the performance of all religious duty is a cross to his feelings. There is no help for him, unless he returns to God. The whole course of Divine providence will run across his path, and his whole life will be a series of crosses and trials. He cannot have his own way. He cannot gratify himself by accomplishing his own wishes and desires. He may beat and dash himself against the everlasting rocks of God’s will and God’s way, but break through and carry all before him he cannot. He must be crossed and recrossed, and crossed again, until he will fall into the Divine order, and sink into the will of God.

17. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own tempers. Having forsaken God, he will be sure to have much to irritate him. In a backslidden state, he cannot possess his soul in patience. The vexations of his backslidden life will make him nervous and irritable; his temper will become explosive and uncontrollable.

18. The backslider in heart will be full of his own disgraces. He is a professor of religion. The eyes of the world are upon him, and all his inconsistencies, worldly-mindedness, follies, bad tempers, and hateful words and deeds, disgrace him in the estimation of all men who know him.

19. The backslider in heart will be full of his own delusions. Having an evil eye, his whole body will be full of darkness. He will almost certainly fall into delusions in regard to doctrines and in regard to practices. Wandering on in darkness, as he does, he will, very likely, swallow the grossest delusions. Spiritism, Mormonism, Universalism, and every other ism that is wide from the truth, will be very likely to gain possession of him. Who has not observed this of backsliders in heart?

20. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own bondage. His profession of religion brings him into bondage to the Church. He has no heart to consult the interests of the Church, or to labor for its up-building, and yet he is under covenant obligation to do so, and his reputation is at stake. He must do something to sustain religious institutions, but to do so is a bondage. If he does it, it is because he must, and not because he may.

Again, he is in bondage to God. If he performs any duty that he calls religious, it is rather as a slave than as a freeman. He serves from fear or hope, just like a slave, and not from love. A gain, he is in bondage to his own conscience. To avoid conviction and remorse, he will do or omit many things, but it is all with reluctance, and not at all of his own cordial goodwill.

21. The backslider in heart is full of his own self condemnation. Having enjoyed the love of God, and forsaken Him, he feels condemned for everything. If he attempts religious duty, he knows there is no heart in it, and hence condemns himself. If he neglects religious duty, he of course condemns himself. If he reads his Bible, it condemns him. If he does not read it, he feels condemned. If he goes to religious meetings, they condemn him; and if he stays away, he is condemned also. If he prays in secret, in his family, or in public, he knows he is not sincere, and feels condemned.

If he neglects or refuses to pray, he feels condemned. Everything condemns him. His conscience is up in arms against him, and the thunders and lightnings of condemnation follow him, whithersoever he goes.

V. HOW TO RECOVER FROM A STATE OF BACKSLIDING.

1. Remember whence you are fallen. Take up the question at once, and deliberately contrast your present state with that in which you walked with God.

2. Take home the conviction of your true position. No longer delay to understand the exact situation between God and your soul.

3. Repent at once, and do your first works over again.

4. Do not attempt to get back, by reforming your mere outside conduct.

Begin with your heart, and at once set yourself right with God.

5. Do not act like a more convicted sinner, and attempt to recommend yourself to God by any impenitent works or prayers. Do not think that you must “reform, and make yourself better” before you can come to Christ, but understand distinctly, that coming to Christ, alone, can make you better. However much distressed you may feel, know for a certainty that until you repent and accept His will, unconditionally, you are no better, but are constantly growing worse. Until you throw yourself upon His sovereign mercy, and thus return to God, He will accept nothing at your hands.

6. Do not imagine yourself to be in a justified state, for you know you are not. Your conscience condemns you, and you know that God ought to condemn you, and if He justified you in your present state, your conscience could not justify Him. Come, then, to Christ at once, like a guilty, condemned sinner, as you are; own up, and take all the shame and blame to yourself, and believe that notwithstanding all your wanderings from God, He loves you still – that He has loved you with an everlasting love, and, therefore, with loving-kindness is drawing you.

Filed Under: Anthropology, Blog, Books, Church History, Ethics / Praxis, Evangelism, Humor, Preaching / Teaching, Quotes, Soteriology, Spiritual Growth Tagged With: 19th Century, Charles Finney, discipleship, Evangelism, Revivalism, Second Great Awakening

August 8, 2013 by kevinstilley

Christian Worldview book recommendations

What are some of the best books on developing and/or maintaining a Christian Worldview?  Below you will find lists of book recommendations from Michael Craven, Chris Leland, Del Tackett, David Noebel, Chuck Edwards, Ron Nash, Paul Copan and others.

___

David Noebel and Chuck Edwards

The following books are some of those recommended in Countering Culture: Arming Yourself to Confront Non-Biblical Worldviews, written by David Noebel and Chuck Edwards.

Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (John Ankerberg and John Weldon)

See The Gods Fall (Francis Beckwith and Stephen Parrish)

The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview (John Newport)

The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview: Conflict and Dialogue

Emergence: The Rebirth of the Sacred (David Spangler)

America’s Real War: An Orthodox Rabbi Insists that Judeo-Christian Values are Vital for our Nation’s Survival (Daniel Lapin)

Death By Government ( R.J. Rummel)

The Quest For Cosmic Justice (Thomas Sowell)

America’s 30 Years War (Balint Vazsonyi)

The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (D.A. Carson)

Feminism and the Bible: An Introduction to Feminism for Christians (Jack Cottrell)

The Feminist Gospel: The Movement to Unite Feminism with the Church (Mary Kassian)

Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood (George Grant)

The Death of Truth (Dennis McCallum)

The Menace of Multiculturalism (Alvin Schmidt)

The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially (Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher)

Cloning of the American Mind ( B.K. Eakman)

Life at the bottom: The Worldview that makes the Underclass (Theodore Dalrymple)

Poverty and Wealth: Why Socialism Doesn’t Work (Ronald Nash)

You Can Trust The Communists [to be Communists] (Fred Schwarz)

Postmodern Times (Gene Edward Veith)

The Law (Frederic Bastiat)

The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man (J. Budziszewski)

Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality Through Education (B.K. Eakman)

In Defense of Natural Law (Robert George)

Clergy In the Classroom: The Religion of Secular Humanism (David Noebel, J.F. Baldwin, and Kevin Bywater)

Democracy and the Renewal of Public Education (Richard John Neuhaus)

Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Michael Behe)

Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology (William Dembski)

Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Michael Denton)

Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong (Jonathan Wells)

By Design: Science and the Search for God (Lary Witham)

Body & Soul: Human Nature and the Crisis in Ethics (J.P. Moreland and Scott Rae)

Clergy in the Classroom: The Religion of Secular Humanism (David Noebel, J.F. Baldwin, and Kevin Bywater)

The Intellectuals Speak Out About God (Roy Varghese)

Thieves of Innocence: Protecting Our children From New Age Teachings and Occult Practices (John Ankerberg, Craig Branch, and John Weldon)

Apologetics in the New Age ( Norman Geisler and David Clark)

Humanist Manifesto I and II (Paul Kurtz)

Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for a New Planetary Humanism (Paul Kurtz)

The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)

Mind Siege: The Battle for Truth in the New Millenium (Tim LaHaye and David Noebel)

Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of Our Day and the Search For Truth

How Now Shall We Live? (Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey)

Children at Risk: The Battle For the Hearts and Minds of Our Kids (James Dobson and Gary Bauer)

How Should We Then Live? (Francis Schaeffer)

Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Frank Beckwith and Greg Koukl)

True For You, But Not For Me: Deflating The Slogans that Leave Christians Speechless (Paul Copan)

That’s Just Your Interpretation (Paul Copan)

Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists (Benjamin Wiker)

___

Chris Leland

The following books are required reading in the course “Christian Worldview Studies” taught by Dr. Chris Leland at Focus on the Family Institute.

Boa, K. D. (2001). Faith has its reasons: An integrative approach to defending Christianity. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Colson, C. & Pearcey, N. (1999). How now shall we live? Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Guiness, O. (2000). Time for truth: Living free in a world of lies, hype, & spin. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Co.

Hunter, J. D. (1991). Culture wars. The struggle to define America. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Lewis, C.S. (2001). The Abolition of Man. San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins
Publishers, Inc.

Medved, M. (1992). Hollywood vs. America. Popular culture and the war on traditional values. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

Moreland, J. P. (1997). Love your God with all your mind. Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress Publishing Group.

Paine, T. (1989). The age of reason. Lyle Stuart Publishers (paperback ed.).

Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Romanowski, W. D. (2001). Eyes wide open. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.

Sanders, J. O. (1994). Spiritual leadership. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishing.

Schaeffer, F. A. (1984). The great evangelical disaster. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Sire, J. W. (2004). The universe next door. A basic worldview catalog (4th ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

White, H. (2006). Postmodernism 101: A first course for the curious Christian. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.

The syllabus describes the course as follows – – –

DESCRIPTION:

The purpose of this course is to provide academic instruction on the importance of and ability to communicate God’s truth to others in Christian love. In this course, that means exploring the issues of truth, how we arrive at truth, and what we do with truth. In order to accomplish this, one must (1) believe what it is to have an “ultimate purpose in living,” (2) be able to “know” God, and (3) be willing and able to impact the individuals, families and communities around us. A significant part of this evangelistic perspective is better understanding what we believe and why, as well as knowing what the other, prevailing worldviews in society propose and why. Ultimately, we must be fully prepared to give the world an answer to questions about life and death and truth and love and God, or as the Scriptures say, to “know how you should respond to each person” who asks us about such things (Col. 4:6, NAS trans.).

The Christian Worldview Studies course is designed, therefore, to deepen and broaden the student’s understanding of the core presuppositions of the Christian worldview, and to equip them to evaluate those presuppositions in contrast with other, competing worldviews. The goal is to enable students to think more clearly and critically about the ultimate issues of human existence, so that they may live more purposeful lives and participate more constructively in the larger socio-cultural debate.

The study of worldview constitutes a window through which we can view the nature of man and the nature of his conduct. To that extent, it’s as close as we can get to the core reality or truth of who we are and what we do in life. Knowledge of worldviews is commensurate with acquiring a powerful form of wisdom, that most precious of Biblical commodities that characterized the sons of Issachar, “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do …” (1 Chron. 12:32, NAS trans.). Thus are we also charged with the privilege of understanding our times, that we might instruct America, in both love and truth, what we all together need to do.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES:
1. To further enhance students’ awareness of the preeminence of evangelism.
2. To further enhance the students’ understanding of the Christian worldview, especially as it contrasts with the other predominant worldviews of today.
3. To empower the student to effectively communicate with those whose worldview differs from the Christian perspective, especially regarding one’s understanding of Jesus Christ and the meaning of truth in today’s world.
4. To further enhance the students’ inner spiritual life, Christian character, and love relationship with God and others.

TOPICS:
• Worldviews in Conflict
• The Christian Mind
* Worldview Leadership
• Christian Theism
• Classical Deism
• Atheistic Naturalism
• Pagan Mysticism
• The Postmodern Crisis
• Feminization of worldviews
• Counterfeit Gods
• Communicating Effectively
• Mass Media Influences
• Contemporary Strategies

___

Michael Craven

Michael Craven of the Center For Christ and Culture recommends the following books on understanding and developing a Christian Worldview;

Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturalized Christianity

Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity

Christ and Culture

The Opening of the Christian Mind: Taking Every Thought Captive to Christ

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture

What Is Truth?: A Comparative Study of the Positions of Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl F. H. Henry, Donald Bloesch, Millard Erickson

Building a Christian Worldview

Clash Of Orthodoxies: Law Religion & Morality In Crisis

How Now Shall We Live?

Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It

Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth

The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the

Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia–and How It Died

___

Paul Copan

The following books are recommended for further reading in the Introduction to How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong?: Responding to Objections That Leave Christians Speechless, by Paul Copan.

On Jesus (Douglas Groothuis)

Love Your God With All Your Mind (J.P. Moreland)

Philosophical Foundations for a Chrstian Worldview (J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig)

Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People’s Hearts the Way Jesus Did ( Randy Newman)

The Divine Conspiracy (Dallas Willard)

___

Del Tackett

The following books are required reading in the course Cultural Issues In Christian Perspective taught by Dr. Del Tackett and Dr. Chris Leland, at Focus on the Family Institute.

Boa, K.D. & Bowman, R. M. (2001). Faith has its reasons: An integrative approach to defending Christianity. Colorado Spring, CO: NavPress.

Bonhoeffer, D. (1954). Life together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Briner, Bob. (1993). Roaring lambs. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Colson, C. (1999). How now shall we live? Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Colson, C. (2003). Being the body. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group.

de Tocqueville, Alexis. (1835). Democracy in America, (Vol 1). (Reprinted by Vintage Books, New York, 1990).

Dobson, J. (2004). Marriage under fire. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

Ellis, E. S. (1884). Not yours to give. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates (Reprinted by Conservative Printing, 2003).

Grudem, W. A. (2003). Business for the glory of God: The Bible’s teachings on the moral goodness of business. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Kavanaugh, P. 1996. Spiritual lives of the great composers. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Lewis, C. S. (1974). The abolition of man. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancicso.

Minnery, T. (2001). Why you can’t stay silent: A biblical mandate to shape our culture. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishing/Focus on the Family.

Olasky, M. (1999). The American leadership tradition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Pollock, J. (1996). William Wilberforce: A man who changed his times. Mclean, VA: The Trinity Forum.

Postman, N. (1985). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. New York: Penguin Books.

Schaeffer, F. A. (1984). The great evangelical disaster. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books

Schmidt, Alvin J. (2004). How Christianity changed the world. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Sire, J. W. (2004). The universe next door. A basic worldview catalog. 4th edition. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Schlossberg, H. (1990). Idols for destruction: The conflict of Christian faith and American culture.Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Sowell, T. (1995). The vision of the anointed: Self-congratulation as a basis for social policy. New York, NY: Basic Books.

White, H. (2006). Postmodernism 101. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Books.

* * *

The syllabus describes the course as follows – – –

DESCRIPTION

The purpose of this course is to deepen and broaden the student’s understanding of the core assumptions of the Christian worldview, and to apply this perspective to critical issues involving the contemporary family, church, and society. The goal is to enable students to think more clearly about the ultimate issues of human existence so that they may live more purposeful lives and participate more constructively in the calling of the Christians as a transformed and transforming community through which God heals individuals, families and societies.

The course focuses on the central issue of our understanding of the existence and nature of God, human beings, and the world around us. The aim is clearer insight into Christ’s ongoing redemptive work centered in the Christians and Christian community as God’s chief agent of societal change. Christ’s work extends beyond the individual to include all of created reality, especially the social aspects of human experience. Students are encouraged to go beyond mere understanding to actual participation in the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.

OBJECTIVES
1. To awaken the student’s spirit, heart and mind toward God and the world which Christ came to restore.
2. To facilitate the understanding and communication of the essential elements of a Christian worldview, as it contrasts with other competing and counterfeit worldviews.
3. To equip students to develop a biblically and theologically informed understanding of the relationship between social institutions and God’s design for social order.
4. To expose the students to new ways of thinking about social institutions, current issues and pathologies and the Christian’s role in effecting transformation in each sphere of life.
___

Ronald Nash

Ronald Nash taught a course on Advanced Worldview Analysis at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

Recommended books for Ronald Nash’s class on Advanced Worldview Analysis included:

Ron Nash, The Closing of the American Heart: What’s Really Wrong with America’s Schools, Probe

Ron Nash, Poverty and Wealth: Why Socialism Doesn’t Work, Probe

Nash & Belli, Beyond Liberation Theology, Baker

Ron Nash, Why the Left is Not Right: The Religious Left: Who Are They and What Do They Believe?, Zondervan

___

Why Am I Here?

The study Why: 40 Days Pursuing Answers To Life’s Biggest Questions recommends the following books for answering the question, “Why Am I Here?”

To Everyone An Answer: The Case for the Christian Worldview, by Frances Beckwith, William Lane Craig, & J.P. Moreland

Letters From a Skeptic, by Gregory A. Boyd

I’m Glad You Asked
, by Ken Boa and Larry Moody

That’s Just Your Interpretation, by Paul Copan

Reasonable Faith, by William Lane Craig

Why I Am A Christian, by Norman Geisler and Paul Hoffman

Give Me An Answer, by Cliffe Knechtle

Pocket Handbook Of Christian Apologetics
, by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli

Know Why You Believe, by Paul Little

How To Give Away Your Faith, by Paul Little

Scaling The Secular City, by J.P. Moreland

The Case For Faith, by Lee Strobel The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren

__________

RELATED BOOKS

Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover

___

Your Turn

What books would you add to the lists above?  Share your suggested titles in the comment section below.

___

Books to Help You Survive College with Your Faith Intact, by Douglas Grouthuis and Sara Geis

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Epistemology, Philosophy, Politics, Science, Theology, Worldview, Zeitgeist Tagged With: bibliography, book list, Culture, discipleship, recommended reading, Worldview

July 9, 2012 by kevinstilley

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – select quotes

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
~ in The Cost of Discipleship

Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.
~ in The Cost of Discipleship

I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed through intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died.
~ in Life Together

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…
~ in Letters and Papers from Prison

In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
~ in Letters and Papers from Prison

It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, in God’s Son Jesus Christ, than to discover what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I will die. And the fact that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, will be raised on the day of judgment.
~ in Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible

It is not necessary that we should discover new ideas in our meditation. It is sufficient, and far more important, if the Word, as we read and understand it, penetrates and dwells within us.
~ in Life Together

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
~ in The Cost of Discipleship

The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.
~ in The Cost of Discipleship

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.
~ in Life Together

Time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
~ in Letters and Papers from Prison

To be silent does not mean to be inactive; rather it means to breathe in the will of God, to listen attentively and be ready to obey.
~ in Meditating on the Word

When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.
~ in The Cost of Discipleship

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
~ in The Cost of Discipleship

You have granted me many blessings; let me also accept what is hard from your hand.
~ in Prayers from Prison

Being a Christan is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

How do we know that dying is so dreadful? who knows whether in our human fear and anguish, we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just waht is so marvelous, that we can transform death.

I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

Music… will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.

No one has yet believed in God and the Kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour–waiting and looking forward to being released from bodily existence.

Politics are not the task of a Christian.

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

The righteous man is the one who lives for the next generation.

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.

There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve — even in pain — the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.

To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.

To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.

Unless we have the courage to fight for a revival of wholesome reserve between man and man, we shall perish in an anarchy of human values… . Socially it means the renunciation of all place-hunting, a break with the cult of the “star,” an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one’s more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.

__________

RELATED CONTENT

  • Trivia Index
  • Index to Great Quotes

__________

Book Cover

(click on image)

.

Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, Quotes, Theology Tagged With: Bonhoeffer, discipleship, quotations, quote

May 31, 2011 by kevinstilley

What Do You Think?

What are some ways that you see people living out their faith?

Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, What Do You Think? Tagged With: discipleship, Ethics, Faith, Praxis

May 10, 2011 by kevinstilley

What Do You Think?

How do you engage your friends in spiritual conversations?

What questions do you ask? Share your answers in the comment section below.

Examples:

  • How is God working in your life now?
  • What is He teaching you from His Word?
  • How have you seen God working in your life and in those around you?
  • Do you find it hard to live in a way consistent with the Bible?
  • Where are you experiencing love?
  • How can I pray for you?
  • Do you set aside time to spend alone with the Lord?
  • How are you growing?
  • How are you? Really?
  • What decisions are you currently making?
  • What’s going on in your world?

 

Filed Under: What Do You Think? Tagged With: conversation, discipleship, Evangelism, friendship

July 22, 2010 by kevinstilley

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – select quotes

The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our hearts.
~ in Psalms: The Prayer-book of the Bible, pages 9-10)

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes, Theology Tagged With: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, discipleship

September 10, 2008 by kevinstilley

What Do You Think?

What is the greatest spiritual advice you ever received?

Share your answers in the comments below.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: advice, Blog, discipleship, mentor, spirituality, What Do You Think?

August 3, 2008 by kevinstilley

Andrew Murray on Consecration

CONSECRATION

“But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.”

To be able to offer anything to God is a perfect mystery. Consecration is a miracle of grace. “All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.” In these words there are four very precious thoughts I want to try and make clear to you:

1. God is the Owner of all, and gives all to us.

2. We have nothing but what we receive–but everything we need we may receive from God.

3. It is our privilege and honour to give back to God what we receive from Him.

4. God has a double joy in His possessions when he receives back from us what He gave.

And when I apply this to my life–to my body, to my wealth, property, to my whole being with all its powers–then I understand what Consecration ought to be.

1. It is the glory of God, and His very nature, to be always GIVING. God is the owner of all. There is no power, no riches, no goodness, no love, outside of God. It is the very nature of God, that He does not live for Himself, but for His creatures. His is a love that always delights to give. Here we come to the first step in consecration. I must see that everything I have is given by Him; I must learn to believe in God as the great Owner and Giver of all. Let me hold that fast. I have nothing but what actually and definitely belongs to God. Just as much as people say, “this money in my purse belongs to me,” so God is the Proprietor of all. It is His and His only. And it is his life and delight to be always giving. Oh, take that precious thought–there is nothing that God has that He does not want to give. It is His nature, and therefore when God asks you anything, He must give it first Himself, and He will. Never be afraid whatever God asks; for God only asks what is His own; what He asks you to give He will first Himself give you. The Possessor, and Owner, and Giver of all! This is our God. You can apply this to yourself and your powers to all you are and have. Study it, believe it, live in it, every day, every hour, every moment.

2. Just as it is the nature and glory of God to be always giving, it is the nature and glory of man to be always receiving. What did God make us for? We have been made to be each of us a vessel into which God can pour out His life, His beauty, His happiness, His love. We are created to be each a receptacle and a reservoir of divine heavenly life and blessing, just as much as God can put into us. Have we understood this, that our great work–the object of our creation–is to be always receiving? If we fully enter into this, it will teach some precious things. One thing–the utter folly of being proud or conceited. What an idea! Suppose I were to borrow a very beautiful dress, and walk about boasting of it as if it were my own, you might say, “What a fool!” And here it is the Everlasting God owns everything we have; shall we dare to exalt ourselves on account of what is all His? Then what a blessed lesson it will teach us of what our position is! I have to do with a God whose nature is to be always giving, and mine to be always receiving. Just as the lock and key fit each other, God the Giver and I the receiver fit into each other. How often we trouble about things, and about praying for them, instead of going back to the root of things, and saying, “Lord, I only crave to be the receptacle of what the Will of God means for me; of the power and the gifts and the love and Spirit of God.” What can be more simple? Come as a receptacle–cleansed, emptied and humble. Come, and then God will delight to give. If I may with reverence say it, He cannot help Himself; it is His promise, His nature. The blessing is ever flowing out of Him. You know how water always flows into the lowest places. If we would but be emptied and low, nothing but receptacles, what a blessed life we could live! Day by day just praising Him–Thou givest and I accept. Thou bestowest and I rejoice to receive. How many tens of thousands of people have said this morning: “What a beautiful day! Let us throw open the windows and bring in the sunlight with its warmth and cheerfulness!” May our hearts learn every moment to drink in the light and sunshine of God’s love.

“Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of Thee, and we have given Thee of Thine own.”

3. If God gives all and I receive all, then the third thought is very simple–I must give all back again. What a privilege that for the sake of having me in loving, grateful intercourse with Him, and giving me the happiness of pleasing and serving Him, the Everlasting God should say, “Come now, and bring Me back all that I give.” And yet people say, “Oh, but must I give everything back?brother, don’t you know that there is no happiness or blessedness except in giving to God! David felt it. He said: “Lord, what an unspeakable privilege it is to be allowed to give that back to Thee which is Thine own!” Just to receive and then to render back in love to Him as God, what He gives. Do you know what God needs you for? People say, “Does not God give us all good gifts to enjoy?” But do you know that the reality of the enjoyment is in the giving back? Just look at Jesus–God gave Him a wonderful body. He kept it holy and gave it as a sacrifice to God. This is the beauty of having a body. God has given you a soul; this is the beauty of having a soul–you can give it back to God. People talk about the difficulty they meet with in having so strong a will. You never can have too strong a will, but the trouble is we do not give that strong will up to God, to make it a vessel in which God can and will pour His Spirit, so as to fit it to do splendid service for Himself.

We have now had the three thoughts: God gives all; I receive all; I give up all. Will you do this now? Will not every heart say, “My God, teach me to give up everything?” Take your head, your mind with all its power of speaking, your property, your heart with its affections–the best and most secret–take gold and silver, everything, and lay it at God’s feet and say, “Lord, here is the covenant between me and Thee. Thou delightest to give all, and I delight to give back all.” God teach us that. If that simple lesson were learnt, there would be an end of so much trouble about finding out the Will of God, and an end of all our holding back, for it would be written, not upon our foreheads, but across our hearts, “God can do with me what He pleases; I belong to Him with all I have.” Instead of always saying to God, “Give, give, give,” we should say, “Yes, Lord, Thou dost give, thou dost love to give, and I love to give back.” Try that life and find out if it is not the very highest life.

4. God gives all, I receive all, I give all. Now comes the fourth thought: God does so rejoice in what we give to Him. It is not only I that am the receiver and the giver, but God is the Giver and the Receiver too, and, may I say it with reverence, has more pleasure in the receiving back than even in giving. With our little faith we often thing they come back to God again all defiled. God says, “No, they come back beautiful and glorified”; the surrender of the dear child of His, with his aspirations and thanksgivings, brings it to God with a new value and beauty. Ah! child of God you do not know how precious the gift that you bring to your Father, is in His sight. Have I not seen a mother give a piece of cake, and the child comes and offers her a piece to share it with her? How she values the gift! And your God, oh, my friends, your God, His heart, His Father’s heart of love, longs, longs, longs to have you give Him everything. It is not a demand. It is a demand, but it is not a demand of a hard Master, it is the call of a loving Father, who knows that every gift you bring to God will bind you closer to Himself, and every surrender you make will open your heart wider to get more of his spiritual gifts. Oh, friends! a gift to God has in His sight infinite value. It delights Him. He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied. And it brings unspeakable blessing to you. These are the thoughts our text suggests; now comes the practical application. What are the lessons? We here learn what the true dispositions of the Christian life are.

To be and abide in continual dependence upon God. Become nothing, begin to understand that you are nothing but an earthen vessel into which God will shine down the treasure of His love. Blessed is the man who knows what it is to be nothing, to be just an empty vessel meet for God’s use. Work, the Apostle says, for it is God who worketh in you to will and to do. Brethren, come and take tonight the place of deep, deep dependence on God. And then take the place of child-like trust and expectancy. Count upon your God to do for you everything that you can desire of Him. Honour God as a God who gives liberally. Honour God and believe that He asks nothing from you but what he is going first to give. And then come praise and surrender and consecration. Praise Him for it! Let every sacrifice to Him be a thank-offering. What are we going to consecrate? First of all our lives. There are perhaps men and women–young men and women–whose hearts are asking, “What do you want me to do–to say I will be a missionary?” No, indeed, I do not ask you to do this. Deal with God, and come to Him and say, “Lord of all, I belong to Thee, I am absolutely at Thy disposal.” Yield up yourselves. There may be many who cannot go as Missionaries, but oh, come, give up yourselves to God all the same to be consecrated to the work of His Kingdom. Let us bow down before Him. Let us give Him all our powers–our head to think for His Kingdom, our heart to go out in love for men, and however feeble you may be, come and say: “Lord, here I am, to live and die for Thy Kingdom. Some talk and pray about the filling of the Holy Spirit. Let them pray more and believe more. But remember the Holy Spirit came to fit men to be messengers of the Kingdom, and you cannot expect to be filled with the Spirit unless you want to live for Christ’s Kingdom. You cannot expect all the love and peace and joy of heaven to come into your life and be your treasures, unless you give them up absolutely to the Kingdom of God, and posses and use them only for Him. It is the soul utterly given up to God that will receive in its emptying the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Dear friends we must consecrate not only ourselves–body and soul–but all we have. Some of you may have children; perhaps you have an only child, and you dread the very idea of letting it go. Take care, take care; God deserves your confidence, your love, and your surrender. I plead with you; take your children and say to Jesus: “Anything Lord, that pleases Thee.” Educate your children for Jesus. God help you to do it. He may not accept all of them, but He will accept of the will, and there will be a rich blessing in your soul for it. Then there is money. When I hear appeals for money from every Society; when I hear calculations as to what the Christians of England are spending on pleasure, and the small amount given for Missions, I say there is something terrible in it. God’s children with so much wealth and comfort, and giving away so small a portion! God be praised for every exception! But there are many who give but very little, who never so give that it costs them something, and they feel it. Oh, friends! our giving must be in proportion to God’s giving. He gives you all. Let us take it up in our Consecration prayer: “Lord, take it all, every penny I possess. It is all Thine.” Let us often say “It is all His.” You may not know how much you ought to give. Give up all, put everything in His hands, and He will teach you if you will wait.

We have heard this precious message from David’s mouth. We Christians of the nineteenth century, have we learned to know our God who is willing to give everything? God help us to.

And then the second message. We have nothing that we do not receive, and we may receive everything if we are willing to stand before God and take it.

Thirdly. Whatever you have received from God give it back. It brings a double blessing to your own soul.

Fourthly. Whatever God receives back from us comes to Him in Heaven and gives Him infinite joy and happiness, as he sees His object has been attained. Let us come in the spirit of David, with the spirit of Jesus Christ in us. Let us pray our Consecration Prayer. And may the Blessed Spirit give each of us grace to think and to say the right thing, and to do what shall be pleasing in the Father’s sight.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Andrew Murray, belief, blessing, Blog, carnal, Classic Texts, consecration, discipleship, discipline, Holy Ghost, Jesus, praxi, Praxis, sanctification, sin, spiritual

August 2, 2008 by kevinstilley

Spiritual Growth

GROWTH
by Andrew Murray

`So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.’ — Mark 4:26-28

`The Head, from whom the whole body increaseth with the increase of God’ — Col. 2:19

`That we may grow into Him which is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body maketh the increase.’ — Eph. 4:15,16

Death is always a standing still: life is always movement, progressiveness. Increase or growth is the law of all created life; consequently, the new life in man is destined to increase, and always by becoming stronger. As there are in the seed and in the earth a life and power of growth by which the plant is impelled to have its full height and fruit; so is there in the seed of the eternal life an impelling force by which also that life always increases and grows with a divine growth, until we come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (Eph. 4:12; 2 Thess. 1:4)

In this parable of the seed that springs up of itself, and becomes great and bears fruit, the Lord teaches us two of the most important lessons on the increase of the spiritual life. The one is that of its self-sufficiency, the other that of its gradualness.

The first lesson is for those that ask what they are to do in order to grow and advance more in grace. As the Lord said of the body: `Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature? consider the lilies of the field how they grow;’ so He says to us here that we can do nothing, and need to do nothing, to make the spiritual life grow. (Hos. 14:16; Matt. 6:25,27,28) Do you not see how, while man slept, the seed sprang up and became high, he knew not how, and how the earth brought forth fruit of itself? When man has once sowed, he must reckon that God cares for the growth: he has not to care: he must trust and rest.

And must man then do nothing? He can do nothing: it is from within that the power of life must come: from the life, from the Spirit implanted in him. To the growth itself he can contribute nothing: it shall be given him to grow. (Ps. 92:14; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3)

All that he can do is to let the life grow. All that can hinder the life, he must take away and keep away. If there are thorns and thistles that take away place and power in the soil which the plant should have, he can take them away. (Jer. 4:13; Matt. 13:22,23) The plant must have its place in the earth alone and undivided. For this the husbandman can care: then it grows further of itself. So must the Christian take away what can hinder the growth of the new life: to surrender the heart entire and undivided for the new life, to hold it alone in possession and to fill it, so that it may grow free and unhindered. (Son. 2:15; Heb. 12;1)

The husbandman can also bring forward what the plant requires in the way of food or drink: he can manure or moisten the soil as it may be needful. So must the believer see to it that for the new life there is brought forward nourishment out of the word, the living water of the Spirit, by prayer. It is in Christ that the new life is planted: from Him it increases with divine increase: abide rooted in Him by the exercise of faith: the life will grow of itself. (2 John 15:4,5; Col. 2:6,7) Give it what it must have: take away what can hinder it: the life will grow and increase of itself.

Then comes in the second lesson of the parable: the gradualness of the growth: `first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.’ Do not expect everything at once. Give God time. By faith and endurance we inherit the promises: the faith that knows that it has everything in Christ: the endurance that expects everything in its time according to the rule and the order of the divine government. Give God time. Give the new life time. It is by continued abiding in the earth that the plant grows: it is by continuous standing in grace, in Christ Himself, in whom God has planted us, that the new life grows. (Heb. 3:13; 6:12,15; Jas. 5:7)

Yes: give the new life only sufficient time: time in prayer: time in intercourse with God: time in continuous exercise of faith: time in persistent separation from the world. Give it time: slow but sure, hidden but real, in apparent weakness but with heavenly power, is the divine growth with which the life of God in the soul grows up to the perfect man in Christ.

Lord God, graciously strengthen the faith of Thy children, that their growth and progress are in Thy hands. Enable them to see what a precious, powerful life was implanted in them by Thyself, a life that increases with a divine increase. Enable them by faith and patience to inherit the promises. And teach them in that faith to take away all that can hinder the new life, to bring forward all that can further it, so that Thou mayest make Thy work in them glorious. Amen.

1. For a plant, the principal thing is the son in which it stands and out of which it draws its strength. For the Christian, this also is the principal thing: he is in Christ. Christ is all: he must grow up in Him, for out of Him the body obtains its increase. To abide in Christ by faith — that is the main thing.

2. Remember that faith must set itself towards a silent restfulness, that growth is just like that of the lilies on God’s hands, and that He will see to it that we increase and grow strong.

3. By this firm and joyful faith, we become `Strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and long-suffering with joy.’ (Col. 1:11)

4. This faith, that God cares for our growth, takes away all anxiety, and gives courage for doing the two things that we have to do: the taking away of what may be obstructive to the new life, the bringing forward of what may be serviceable to it.

5. Observe well the distinction betwixt planting and growing. Planting is the work of a moment: in a moment the earth receives the seed: after that comes the slow growth. Without delay — immediately must the sinner receive the word: before conversion there is no delay. Then with time follows the growth of the seed.

6. The main thing is Christ: from Him and in Him is our growth. He is the soil that of itself brings forth fruit, we know not how. Hold daily intercourse with Him.

__________

RELATED ARTICLES

Andrew Murray on Daily Fellowship With God

The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer

Master List of Great Quotes

__________

RELATED BOOKS

Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover

‎

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Andrew Murray, Blog, Christianity, Classic Texts, discipleship, growth, Jesus, stewardship

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

Recent Blog Posts

  • Discussion Questions for “The Language of God”
  • Billy Graham knew where he was going
  • Interesting quotes from “The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln” by Stephen L. Carter
  • The Bible – select quotes
  • America’s Christian Heritage
  • Christian Involvement In Politics
  • Freedom – select quotes
  • Kevin Stilley on For Christ and Culture Radio
  • Early Western Civilization classroom resources
  • Early Western Civilization Final Exam

Currently Reading

Frankenstein

Twitter Feed

Tweets by @kevinstilley

Connect With Me On Twitter

Follow_me_on_Twitter

Connect With Me On Facebook

Receive My Monthly Newsletter


Copyright © 2019 · Executive Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in