Solus Christus Reformed Baptist Church

A Compare and Contrast of the University Student Revivals in the news, with the revivals in American in the early years.

That Dr. Nettleton possessed peculiar skill in presenting truth to the minds of men, and laboring in revivals of religion, will be admitted by most who are at all acquainted with his history. During that protracted period of conviction, through which he passed before his reconciliation to God, he obtained a knowledge of the human heart which few possess. He could trace the secret windings of human depravity. He understood the refuges of lies to which sinners are prone to resort, and he knew how to meet and to answer the various excuses by which they attempted to shield themselves from blame.

Many are not sensible enough of the necessity of holiness in order to salvation. Everyone hopes for heaven, but if everyone that hoped for heaven ever got there, heaven by this time would have been full of murderers, adulterers, common swearers, drunkards, thieves, robbers,, and licentious debauchers. It would have been full of all manner of wickedness and wicked men, such as the earth abounds with at this day. There would have been those there that are no better than wild beasts, howling wolves, and poisonous serpents; yea, devils incarnate, as Judas was.

An analysis of evangelism counseling in American Church History and the Counseling of the Awakened Sinner. How the allegorical picture called the Slough of Despond from Pilgrim's Progress disappeared in counseling after the 1st generation of Princeton Theological Seminary to the modern "Free Grace Movement."

While he is thus summoned to appear at the great assizes of God's judgment, behold, a quartersessions and jail-delivery is held within himself; where reason sits as judge, the devil puts in a bill of indictment, wherein is alleged all your evil deeds that ever you have committed, and all the good deeds that ever you have omitted, and all the curses and judgments that are due to every sin. Your own conscience shall accuse you, and your memory shall give bitter evidence, and death stands at the bar ready, as a cruel executioner, to dispatch you.

Abandon your course of self-pleasing, bewail your rebellion against God and set your heart firmly against sill. Third, surrender yourself to God's righteous claims and yield yourself unreservedly to the Lordship of Christ. That exhortation is enforced by the following reason: "for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." All who are unconverted proceed along it.

Poor deluded creature! The cursed enchantress persuaded him that she would conduct him to a paradise; but he soon finds his feet entangled in the stocks, and bound with fetters of iron. He is more brutish than the ox, which will not without reluctance go to the place of slaughter, but must be forced and goaded onward by its driver.

Why is it that there are scarcely any left among us who really believe that only the few will reach heaven? There can only be one answer: because it is now generally held that heaven can be obtained on much easier terms than those prescribed by Christ. The adulterous generation in which our lot is cast are quite sure that heaven can be reached without treading the only way which leads there, that the kingdom of God can be entered without passing through "much tribulation"

Although God in them requires universal holiness of us, yet he does not do it in that strict and rigorous way as by the law, so as that if we fail in any thing, either as to the matter or manner of its performance, in the substance of it or as to the degrees of its perfection, that thereon both that and all we do besides should be rejected. But he does it with a contemperation of grace and mercy, so as that if there be a universal sincerity, in a respect to all his commands, he both pardons many sins, and accepts of what we do, though it come short of legal perfection; both on the account of the mediation of Christ.

The 5 questions posited to John Mac on his death-bed. An enthusiastic response to each. Why modern evangelicals don't accept assurance tied to evangelical obedience.

Sudden fears are attended with a stupefying influence upon those that want faith, but far different is the fact with regard to the righteous. The righteous man is as bold as a lion, for he knows, like the three children in Babylon, that the God whom he serves is able to deliver him, or to render him happy, though the desolation of others should involve the destruction, not only of all his outward comforts, but of his mortal life.

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honey-comb and her mouth is smoother than oil. She talks of nothing but love, and pleasure, and perpetual delights. To hear her, one would suppose that she possessed the most generous and disinterested spirit. Her tongue is taught by him who betrayed Eve to paint the vilest sin with the most beautiful colours, and to conceal all its deformity and danger; but it is the part of a reasonable creature to look beyond the present moment, and to consider the end of things, as well as their beginning. There is sweetness indeed in the mouth of this strange woman, (Verse 4) But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edge sword.

Some discussion of the many things that are going on around here, and also a discussion of a commentary on Proverbs and the Immoral, or "strange woman" mentioned in the book of Proverbs numerous times.

It is a great happiness for young people to escape the snares of the harlot, in which so many have been entangled and lost. A true love to the Word of God is eminently fitted to secure such a happiness. There is no viler object in nature than an adulteress. Her beauty is but a jewel of gold in a swine's snout. Though born and baptised in a Christian land, she is to be looked upon as a heathen woman and a stranger; and as self-made brutes are greater monsters than natural brute beasts, so baptised heathens are by far the worst of pagans. Her words may be sweet and soft to the inexperienced ear of a thoughtless youth, but she is only flattering with her lips. Honey and milk seem to be under her tongue, but it is the cruel venom of dragons.

If the prosperity of fools leads them to the indulgence of sin, and the neglect of holiness, it renders their damnation more certain and more dreadful. Their provocations are like those of the Israelites, who provoked God, by turning the Egyptian gold and silver, which he had given them, into an idol of jealousy. They are like the impious ingratitude of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, whom God raised to a throne, but who degraded God into the image of a four-footed beast. When the favours of God are turned into means and instruments of unrighteousness, Oh! what wrath is then treasured up against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God!

Elijah was a mighty intercessor. Let it be pointed out that none but one who walks by faith, who is in marked separation from evil around him, and who is characterized by elevation of spirit or heavenly-mindedness, is qualified for such holy work. The prevalency of Elijah's intercession is recorded not only for our admiration but emulation.

PRESUMING ON CHRIST'S MERCY And the best of us all might offend Christ's merciful disposition if we do not carefully watch that liberty which our fleshly nature is ready to make use of. Thus we reason, "If Christ will not quench the smoking flax, why should we fear that any neglect on our part will bring us into a comfortless condition? If Christ will not do it, what can?" You know the apostle's prohibition, "Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thess. 5:19). Such cautions of not quenching are used by the Spirit as a means of not quenching him.

Those who, by putting off repentance and living in their sins, lose their souls, shall, instead of having the least measure of comfort when they come into Hell, have their ill-spent life always very fresh in their remembrance! While they live here — they can sin and forget it; but when they depart — they shall have it before them; they shall have a remembrance, or their memory notably enlightened, and a clearer, and a continual sight of all their wicked practices that they wrought and did while they were in the world. 'Son, remember,' says he; then you will be made to remember:

"The prophet was bemoaning the failure of all his efforts to glorify God, and the obstinate determination of his people to continue in their apostasy. It was thus he spent his time in the cave at Horeb, brooding over his disappointment, and lashing himself, by reflecting upon the conduct of the people. A solitary place, with nothing to do, might be congenial with such a disposition; it might foster it, but would never heal it: and thus Elijah might have succumbed to a settled melancholy or raving madness.

The stricken soul, crushed under a sense of sin, naturally endorses these insinuations. "It is true," says he, "though it is Satan who says it; I am just such a sinner as he describes." Then the poor soul fears whether pardon can be possible for such an offender; and, probably, he thinks of some gross sin that he has committed, — the blasphemer recollects his profanity, the unchaste man remembers his lasciviousness, and Satan whispers in his ear, "If thou hadst not committed that particular sin, there might have been hope for thee, but that transgression has carried thee over the verge of hope.

Interesting updates given to me by Monergism. And the discussion of revivals and guarding against spiritual backsliding.

"Now these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this fair. Well, so they did; but, behold, even as they entered into the fair, all the people in the fair were moved, and the town itself, as it were, in a hubbub about them, and that for several reasons: For, 1. "First, The pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair made a great gazing upon them! some said they were fools; some, they were bedlams; and some they were outlandish men.

Every believer may ordinarily find this in himself; for even though this disposition may be variously weakened, opposed, or interrupted by indwelling sin and the power of temptation; though it may be impaired by a neglect of stirring up and exercising the principle of spiritual life, in all requisite and graces, on all occasions — it will still be working in the believer, and will fill the mind with a constant discontent38 with itself when it is not observed, followed, and improved. No believer will ever have peace in his own mind, if he does not have some experience of a universal disposition toward all holiness and godliness in his mind and soul.

When the howling tempest has played out its strength, it soothes itself to sleep. Then comes a season of calm and quiet, so profound in its stillness, that only the monstrous tempest could have been the mother of so mighty a calm. So seems it with us. Deep waves of trial, high mountains of joy. But the reverse is almost as often true; from Pisgah's top we pass to our graves; from the top of Carmel we have to go down to the dens of lions, and to fight with the leopards. Let us be on our watch-tower, lest like Manoah, having seen the angel of God, the next thing should be that we say we shall surely die, for we have seen the Lord.

Wherever faith exists in sincerity,53 it will constantly labor, endeavor, and strive to fill up all duties of divine worship with the living, real, heart-acting of grace; and where it does not do so, where this is not attained, it will never allow the soul to take any rest or satisfaction in such duties, but will cast them away like a defiled garment. The one who can pass through such duties without a sensible54 endeavor for the real exercise of grace in them, and without self-abasement on performing them, will find hardly any other clear evidence of saving faith in himself.

Those who, in their wickedness on earth, were companions together, and had a sort of carnal friendship one for another, will here have no appearance of fellowship; but perfect and continual and undisguised hatred will exist between them. As on earth they promoted each other's sins, so now in hell they will promote each other's punishment. On earth they were the instruments of undoing each other's souls—there they were occupied in blowing up the fires of each other's lusts, and now they will blow forever the fires of each other's torments.